


the urgency of now.

by sevensevan



Category: Amar a Muerte (TV)
Genre: (no one super super relevant i swear), Alternate Universe, Angst, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Lesbian Juliana Valdés, Minor Character Death, Sharing a Bed, Supergirl au, Trauma, juliana doesn't know how secret identities are supposed to work, kind of, please just read it you wont be confused, you don't need to watch supergirl
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2019-12-18 17:02:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18254099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevensevan/pseuds/sevensevan
Summary: Juliana doesn't have a day job. She doesn't have friends, a family, or a real life. She is Supergirl, the last daughter of Krypton, and that is all that she is, until the day she meets Valentina Carvajal.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> there are a lot of notes i need to discuss here, so i might miss a few things. please bear with me.
> 
> 1\. i've only seen the juliantina scenes from amar a muerte, so if any of my characterizations are off, that's probably why. concrit on characterization is welcome; please be polite.
> 
> 2\. i'm american, i'm not in any way latinx, i live about as far north as you can get, and i speak about twelve words of spanish, eight of which are numbers i learned from cartoons as a kid. in other words, i don't know much. i did my best here; if anything is culturally insensitive or otherwise Bad, please let me know so i can do better.
> 
> 3\. getting into the actual notes on the fic itself, the most relevant thing is that jacobo in this fic isn't chino and isn't transmigrated anyone; he's just a dude named jacobo who's pretty cool. i guess that makes him sort of oc-ish?
> 
> 4\. this fic doesn't have like a recognizable plotline yet, but it'll be two or three chapters (i'm setting it to three to be safe). that said, i hope you like the weird, formless, overwritten meandering i'm on right now.
> 
> 5\. if you haven't seen supergirl: the important background information here is that aliens are Present on earth. they're known, they're sort of a really really hated minority that mostly consists of refugees. there's a lot of really tense social/political buzz around alien immigration (unsurprisingly) but they're here and they've got rights, jobs, all that cool shit. the tone behind the discussion of current events in this fic: aliens have been openly present for about 20 years or so, there's a ton of discrimination and bigotry, the media goes back and forth on them generally for whatever they can sensationalize. i'm taking some liberties with the supergirl canon here as well, so if you are familiar, that's why it doesn't line up properly.
> 
> 6\. i've definitely forgotten something but hey, i hope you enjoy.

Lupita is still awake when Juliana comes in, which is not part of her plan.

“Juli,” Lupita says as Juliana closes the door behind her.

“Mama.”

“Is that girl alright?” Juliana frowns, shaking her head slightly in confusion. Lupita gestures towards the TV in the corner of the tiny apartment. It’s off, but Juliana can hear the power rushing through it, the soft buzzing of electricity. The sound is everywhere in the city, everywhere on Earth. It bothers her sometimes, grating against her ears and digging into her brain until she flies up as high as she can, brushing against the edge of space, the far reaches of the atmosphere, where all she can hear is the wind and her own heartbeat. Where it’s finally quiet.

“They played it on TV,” Lupita is saying, and Juliana refocuses on the conversation. “You saved that girl, the rich one. With the evil sister.”

“Valentina Carvajal,” Juliana says. Lupita nods. Juliana had saved the girl that afternoon, when her helicopter had been attacked by a hitman—one reportedly sent by the eldest Carvajal sibling, Eva.

“Is she alright?” Lupita says. Juliana shrugs.

“She was when I left her on the ground,” she says. “She had her bodyguards with her. She should be fine.” Lupita keeps looking at her, eyes narrowed. Juliana shifts uncomfortably beneath her mother’s gaze. “What do you want me to say? I was doing my job.”

“No,” Lupita says, shaking her head. “No, your job is to stay alive, to keep our world’s memory alive. Not to save the little sisters of psychotic millionaires.”

“Mama—“ Juliana turns away, closing her eyes in frustration. She rests her palms on the back of the kitchen chair beside her. She wants to hit something, wants to take out all her impossible feelings, but she can’t. Not here, not ever again. Everything on this planet is too fragile to touch. “What’s the point, hm?” she asks Lupita. “You want me to stay in this tiny apartment forever, have our prayers and our holidays and traditions—why? To what end? The yellow sun makes us strong, not immortal. Someday we’ll both die, and Krypton will die with us, and we will have done nothing— _nothing_ —to honor it.” Juliana lifts her palms from the counter and turns towards Lupita. “The Book of Rao says that it is the responsibility of those with power to help those who lack it. We have power here. I can do that much, at least, to remember our home.” Lupita says nothing, and Juliana closes her eyes. She takes a long, slow breath, noticing the weight of the air as she always does. The air is different here; it’s close enough to home for them to live, but the pollutants ache like dust in her lungs. The clean air is what Juliana misses most about Krypton—the clean air and the red sun and not having blood on her hands or a world on her shoulders.

“I’m going to go see if that girl is okay,” Juliana says. “I’ll see you later, Mama.” Still, Lupita says nothing as Juliana opens the door to the apartment and leaves again. She never says anything. They’ve had this argument a thousand times since they fled a dying planet for this new home, and nothing Juliana says will ever convince Lupita to listen. Juliana has made her peace with that. She’s doing the right thing for herself, and Lupita is doing the right thing for herself. Neither of them will ever understand or mimic the other. Lupita will stay in the apartment until the day she dies, using Panchito, the foreman of their building and the only human who knows the truth of their situation, to slowly sell off the gems they brought with them from Krypton for money, translating Kryptonian stories into various Earth languages and writing down everything she can recall from their home world. It’s all meaningless to Juliana. A collection of books, rituals, and folk tales is not a culture without a people to practice it, and the only Kryptonians left are Juliana and her mother.

Juliana flies to the Carvajal Tower. She has no idea if Valentina Carvajal is still there, but she can’t think of anywhere else to check. Besides, the flight is pretty—straight between skyscraper after skyscraper in the business district, the wind in her hair and whipping over the sleek lines of her combat suit. She owns several of the suits, all of which are identical—black, formfitting, with only a small Kryptonian insignia, her family crest, two inches by two inches, over her heart. Utterly boring, but undeniably functional.

On Krypton, Juliana had wanted to be a designer. On Earth, though, even if she had a day job, Juliana wouldn’t pursue fashion. The clothes here make no sense to her—so many pieces, so few colors, full of purposeless holes and ancient technology. Krypton hadn’t used anything resembling a button in millennia, and yet here, she can hardly buy a pair of pants without one.

As she approaches the Carvajal Tower, Juliana flicks her eyes over it, effortlessly slipping into what Panchito calls her x-ray vision. She catalogues the people on each floor—mostly security guards, at this time of night. There, though, on the top floor, in an expansive office, is Valentina Carvajal.

There’s no one else in the room with her, so Juliana lands on the balcony outside the office, her combat boots hitting the concrete with a slight _thump_. The wall between the balcony and the office, including the door, is completely made of glass, and through it, Juliana can see Valentina at her desk, a half-empty bottle of some kind of alcohol beside her and her laptop open in front of her. Juliana steps forward, raising a hand to tap on the window, but she hesitates.

(The first week she had been here on Earth, nineteen and missing an entire planet of people, struggling to wrap her mouth around the odd, flowing sounds of Spanish, Juliana had tried to knock on Panchito’s door. Instead, she had knocked it right off its hinges and into the opposite wall. That had been years ago, and Juliana knows her strength now, but still, sometimes it scares her.)

Juliana opens the balcony door without knocking. Valentina hears it, and jumps in her seat, her head snapping around to see who’s coming in. When she sees it’s Juliana, she relaxes and exhales heavily.

“Don’t they knock wherever you’re from?” she says.

“Sorry,” Juliana says. “No, they don’t. All of my people were psychic, we knew when people were coming.” Valentina blinks at her. “I’m kidding.” It’s a weak joke, but it brings an equally weak smile to Valentina’s face, so Juliana counts it as a victory.

“What are you doing here, Supergirl?” Valentina says. She turns back around to close her laptop while she speaks, and in doing so, misses the way Juliana flinches at the title. She doesn’t like it; she’s never wanted it. She’s not _super_ anything, not anything good, at any rate. How many people has she let die? She’s sure Rao is counting, the scales of the universe slowly tipping further and further against her.

“I wanted to make sure you were alright,” Juliana says. “After this afternoon.” Valentina stands and turns to look at her. Juliana can smell the alcohol on her from here, her enhanced senses picking out each individual flavor and ingredient and cataloguing them. Scotch, she decides. Strong, too.

“I’m fine,” Valentina says. “My overprotective bodyguard made me go to the hospital, and they told me to just go home.”

“And yet you’re here,” Juliana notes. Valentina smiles. “And other than physically?” Juliana asks. “Knowing it was your sister who ordered that attack—“

“It wasn’t,” Valentina says, shaking her head. Juliana quiets, frowning in confusion. “It wasn’t Eva.” Valentina pours herself another drink, and part of Juliana’s mind starts measuring the glass backwards against the open bottle, calculating how much Valentina has already drunk.

“All the news is saying it was,” Juliana says, and Valentina snorts.

“Reporters must’ve been more accurate on your world than they are here,” she says. “Don’t trust the news.” She takes a long drink. “Eva wouldn’t send someone to kill me.” She lowers her glass, swirling it in tiny circles and watching the liquid turn. “She’s misguided, but protecting Guille and I has always been her highest priority.”

“I might be wrong,” Juliana says, “but didn’t she try to kill your best friend a few years ago for being an alien?” Valentina shakes her head.

“She thought she was protecting me,” she says with a shrug, taking another sip. “Like I said. Misguided.” Juliana averts her eyes, letting her gaze slip over Valentina’s shoulder to shelter herself from the bitterness in Valentina’s voice and eyes. Someone so young, so beautiful, shouldn’t have such old and tired eyes.

(Juliana supposes the same is likely true of herself. Sometimes she looks in the mirror and sees her mother looking back.)

“I’m glad you’re alright, Miss Carvajal,” Juliana says, already beginning to turn back towards the balcony door.

“Wait,” Valentina says, and Juliana hears her set the glass of whiskey down. Juliana turns back to look at her. “Valentina, please. You saved my life, I think you earned a little familiarity.”

“Valentina,” Juliana repeats. Valentina smiles, almost amused, and Juliana’s brow furrows in confusion. “What?”

“Nothing,” Valentina says. “Say my name again.”

“Valentina.” This time, Valentina giggles. It’s infectious, and despite herself, Juliana is smiling back. “What is it?”

“It’s nothing,” Valentina says again, still laughing slightly. The sound is completely at odds with the bitter exhaustion that had filled her voice only moments before, and Juliana vastly prefers it. It fits Valentina’s age and face, sunny and light and gentle. “Your accent—it comes out when you say my name.” Juliana shakes her head and looks down, smiling.

“Don’t laugh,” she chides. “I can’t help it.”

“I’m not laughing _at_ you,” Valentina says, finally getting control of herself. “I’m sorry, I’m a little bit drunk.” Juliana has nothing to say to that, and they lapse into silence, though it’s a surprisingly comfortable one. “I told you my name,” Valentina says after a moment. “What’s yours, when you’re not flying around saving the world?”

“You have a Wikipedia page,” Juliana says, ignoring the way her stomach twinges uncomfortably at the _saving the world_ comment. “The two aren't really comparable—“

“Please?” Valentina says. “You could tell me your job, or your age, or—anything about your secret identity?” Juliana looks away.

“I can’t,” she says. Valentina starts to protest, but Juliana speaks over her. “No, listen. I can’t. There’s no—I don’t—no secret identity. No day job, no secret life—nothing.” Juliana gestures at the crest on her chest, the combat suit she’s wearing. “This is it. This is me.”

“So Supergirl is your whole life?” Valentina asks. Juliana nods. Valentina tilts her head slightly, catlike, her eyes piercing into Juliana’s. “That sounds lonely.” Juliana breaks the eye contact, looking down at her boots.

“Sometimes,” she admits, and it feels like a confession. She looks back up at Valentina. “My name, my name is Juliana.” She shouldn’t be telling her this, but Valentina breaks into a smile, and Juliana, for the life of her, can’t feel bad about breaking her mother’s first rule: _never tell anyone any part of the truth._

“Juliana,” Valentina repeats. It’s the first time anyone other than Lupita or Panchito has said Juliana’s name in years, and she blames that fact for the way her stomach rolls at the sound of her name in Valentina’s voice. “You have a human name.”

“No, no. Earth has our names,” Juliana says. “My people have been here before, many times. You humans kept some things.” She’s about to say more when the door to the office opens and a man in a suit walks in.

“Miss Carvajal, I—“ the man stops talking when he sees Juliana. “Oh,” he says softly.

“Give us a minute, please, Jacobo,” Valentina says, glancing over at him. The man—Jacobo—hesitates, looking between Juliana and Valentina. “It’s okay,” Valentina says. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

“I…okay,” Jacobo says. “I’ll wait outside.” He leaves the room again.

“That’s the overprotective bodyguard?” Juliana says. Valentina nods.

“He worries too much,” she says. “But…after my father died…he’s the closest thing I have to one, now.” She drains the last of her whiskey. “He’s a good man.” Juliana had known, on some level, that León Carvajal was dead, had died before Juliana ever set foot on this planet, but hearing Valentina talk about makes it real, concrete. Juliana is about to speak up, to offer her sympathies— _your father may have been viciously murdered in front of you by anti-alien zealots, eventually driving your sister to descend into the same bigotry he spent the last years of his life combatting, but hey, everyone I ever loved except my mother is dead, so at least you’re not alone_ —when Valentina speaks again.

“I should go before Jacobo worries himself into a heart attack,” she says. “But, Juliana, you should come visit again. It would be…I would like to see you again, sometime.” Juliana nods, taking a few steps backwards towards the balcony door.

“I’d like that, too,” she says, which feels much heavier than it probably should. “Be safe, Valentina. Good night.”

“Good night,” Valentina says after her as Juliana slips out the door onto the balcony. She lifts off smoothly, straight up into the air. She isn’t cold—she can’t get cold on this planet—but the cool air slipping past her skin makes her shiver all the same, a long-obsolete knee-jerk reaction.

Juliana doesn’t leave. She flies to the top of Carvajal Tower and settles there, sitting on the edge of the roof. The city is full of lights and sound, electricity humming so loud Juliana can feel it in her bones. She narrows her hearing away from it, focusing in on the room she had just left. She hears the office door open, and traces Jacobo’s footsteps into the room.

“ _Was that_ Supergirl _?_ ” Jacobo’s voice asks, distorted by the walls and windows between the man and Juliana’s ears.

“ _It was_ ,” Valentina says. “ _She wanted to make sure I was alright after the helicopter_.” Jacobo says nothing, though Juliana imagines he’s nodding.

“ _You have to be careful, Valentina_ ,” he says.

“ _Why?_ ” Valentina says. “ _Because she’s an alien?_ ”

“ _Of course not,_ ” Jacobo says. “ _Because no one knows who she is, or why she does what she does. She’s an unknown entity, and that makes her dangerous_.” There’s the sound of footsteps, followed by rustling fabric, and Juliana is confused until she hones in on their heartbeats, which are now right next to each other. They’re hugging, she realizes. Valentina hadn’t been exaggerating when she said Jacobo was something like a father.

“ _Maybe so,_ ” Valentina says, and Juliana’s heart inexplicably drops. _She thinks I’m dangerous_. “ _But she saved my life, Jacobo. I’m not afraid of her_.”

“ _I’m not asking you to be_ ,” Jacobo says. “ _I just want you to be careful_.”

“When have I ever been anything less?”

“ _Do you want the list alphabetically or chronologically?_ ” Valentina laughs, that same light, musical sound as earlier, and two sets of footsteps make their way out of the office. Juliana shifts her focus, deciding to be done invading their privacy, and leans back on the heels of her hands, looking up at the stars.

With the way the electricity had been bothering her earlier, Juliana had been mentally preparing herself for another flight upwards, for the way the too-thin atmosphere would make her chest itch with the ghost of a pain she can’t feel on Earth. But now, she feels relaxed, the buzzing fading into a gentle sort of white noise. She’s not sure what made the change, but she’s glad for it; every time she starts flying up, she wants to keep going, fly right into space and onwards, across unfathomable distance to the space where Krypton used to be.

Her eyes trace the sky with practiced ease and fall to Rao, which flickers distantly and uncertainly, somewhat apart from the stars around it. Alone. Then she flicks them a bit to the right, a bit down, to where Krypton’s light still shines, steady and unwavering. It’s a lie. Krypton is gone, and the vast field of dust and asteroids that replaced it has long since dispersed. But here, on Earth, the light from the last days of the planet is still visible.

A world, a people, a culture, a _home_ is gone, but the light still shines on, and no one on Earth is any the wiser.

* * *

This time, when Juliana lands on the balcony of Valentina’s office at Carvajal Tower, she knocks. She still scares Valentina, whose head jerks around at the sound, but this time, she breaks into a smile when she sees who it is. Juliana tries to smile back, though she feels strange doing so. She had never been particularly happy—her mother has told her many times how she was such an oddly serious child, how it had concerned them all at times—and, since coming to Earth, she’s so rarely smiled that she’s half-forgotten how.

“You came back,” Valentina says happily as she opens the door. “I wasn’t sure you would.” Juliana steps into the office, and Valentina immediately envelops her in a hug. Juliana awkwardly returns it. Kryptonians weren’t a particularly physical people, and with the ever-growing rift between Juliana and her mother, Juliana doesn’t remember the last time she hugged someone.

“Yes, well,” Juliana says as Valentina releases her. “You were right. It…it’s lonely up there, sometimes.” Valentina smiles and leads Juliana over to the couch on the opposite end of her office. Valentina sits, and Juliana sits down beside her, making sure to leave what she considers an appropriate distance between them. Valentina seems to disagree, as she immediately scoots forward, easily halving the distance.

“So?” Valentina says. “How have you been this past week? Saved anyone exciting?” She turns so one leg is on the couch, curled up beneath her, and looks expectantly at Juliana.

“Not really,” Juliana says. She…isn’t sure what she had been expecting in terms of conversation, but Valentina asking about her work as if it’s just _work_ and not Juliana using her alien powers to act as a vigilante wasn’t it. “Oh! I saved a cat this morning.” Valentina snorts. “What?” Juliana says, already smiling in anticipation of Valentina’s laugh.

“Nothing,” Valentina says, covering her mouth. “Just—I’m picturing you saving a cat.”

“And that’s funny?” Juliana says.

“Dressed like that, it is!” Valentina gestures to Juliana’s combat suit.

“What’s wrong with my uniform?”

“It’s a uniform!” Valentina is half-laughing now. “There’s nothing wrong with it, you’d look good in anything, but you dress like a soldier or an assassin or something and I’m picturing you flying a cat out of a tree.” Juliana says nothing, and Valentina’s face lights up with delight. “That’s what you did, isn’t it?”

“The little girl was crying!” Juliana says, and Valentina bursts into laugher. “What was I _supposed_ to do?” The protest is pointless; Juliana is laughing, too. How can she not, with Valentina so happy in front of her?

“The press must’ve loved this,” Valentina says, shaking her head. Juliana’s smile slips, and she looks away.

“No,” she says. “No, they weren’t there, and I told the girl not to tell anyone.” Valentina props her head up on one hand, her elbow on the back of the couch, and gives Juliana that same piercing look from the week before, the one that makes Juliana feel like a butterfly under a dissecting scope, pinned down and examined.

(The feeling probably isn’t one that Juliana should savor, but she does all the same.)

“Why?” Valentina says. “You need good press. Too many people take one look at your uniform and think you’re scouting out a good place to invade. Saving a kitten from a tree for a little girl would probably change a few minds.”

“It’s not—“ Juliana shakes her head. “It wasn’t a kitten, it was old. And mean. If I wasn’t bulletproof I’d be covered in scratches.”

“Juliana,” Valentina says, shaking her head. “Don’t change the subject.” Juliana sighs and looks away. Her gaze drifts to the flowers sitting on the small coffee table by the couch. They’re white, bushy. They remind her of a similar plant from Krypton, one that her mother had kept in pots in their house. Apparently, there were once entire fields of them, but by the time of Juliana’s birth, the planet was too hot to grow anything above ground, the climate driven to extremes by the foolish, shortsighted actions of greedy politicians.

That’s one thing about Earth that Juliana wishes didn’t remind her so much of home.

“I don’t care what the press says about me,” Juliana says. “I don’t do what I do for fame. Besides, enough people liked me to give me a nickname.”

“But don’t you want recognition?” Valentina says. “Not fame, but…I don’t know, for people to say thank you instead of calling you an invader.”

“That’s not what it’s about,” Juliana says.

“What _is_ it about?”

“Honor.” Valentina quirks an eyebrow at her, an inquisitive smile tugging at her lips.

“Honor,” she repeats. “Like a knight.” Juliana rolls her eyes, a mirroring smile forming on her face. She shoves at Valentina’s arm lightly, calculating and controlling her strength so her teasing shove doesn’t send Valentina through a wall.

“Not like a _knight_ ,” Juliana says. “Not honor for me. Honor for my people. It’s in our religion from home. ‘Those who are given the fruit of Rao’s blessings are so gifted with the responsibility of giving them away.’” Juliana rattles off the last sentence from memory, a direct quotation from the Book of Rao that she had memorized as a child. It’s only when Valentina blinks at her with confusion that Juliana realizes she had spoken in Kryptonian. She clears her throat, feeling an unpleasant heat rising in her face. “Sorry,” she says. “It’s, um, it’s a quote, from our…like a Bible. It says that people who have power or money have to give it away. This planet gives me power, so I give it away.”

“Because of your religion?” Juliana nods. Valentina smiles softly and looks down at the couch, picking at a thread on her pants. “Well, I think the Bible says a lot of stuff like that, too, but I’m sure you’ve noticed that not a lot of people listen.”

“The same was true on Krypton.”

“Krypton,” Valentina echoes. “Your planet?”

“Yes.” Juliana likes the name of her home world in Valentina’s voice, she decides. Valentina doesn’t quite pronounce the vowels right, and the way her voice turns the syllables over isn’t the way they’re meant to be spoken, but Juliana likes it all the same.

“You must be very devout, then, even for your world,” Valentina says, “to act so selflessly for your religion.” Juliana shrugs.

“I didn’t used to be,” she says. “I always loved the Book, even as a kid, but I didn’t believe it. And even now, it’s not about believing. I mean, I do believe, now, but the things I do…it’s because they’re what my world would’ve wanted, not just Rao. It’s about the whole culture, the best of all of us. Honoring them.”

“You talk about your Krypton in the past tense,” Valentina says. Juliana blinks, and _she doesn’t know_.

Of course she doesn’t know. There’s no possible way for Valentina to know what became of Krypton, why Juliana is here, but still, it’s jarring. Juliana speaks to two people most days, Lupita and Panchito. Both of them know everything. Juliana has never had to _explain_ it to anyone.

“Because it’s gone,” Juliana says. “All of it, it’s gone. The planet exploded. It’s just me and—it’s just me. I’m the only one left.” She writes her mother out of the story, only feeling the smallest twinge of guilt at lying to Valentina. Lupita has never wanted to be a part of Juliana’s job, and though Juliana doesn’t want to acknowledge it, she feels just a little bit of vindication at keeping Lupita out of her private life, as well.

“Juls…” The nickname isn’t one Juliana has heard before, but she doesn’t have a moment to process it, as Valentina takes one of her hands in both of her own. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Juliana says. “It was a long time ago.” Valentina frowns at her.

“Only a year.” Juliana looks away. It’s a fair assumption; Supergirl had made her first appearance just over a year earlier, catching a plane and setting it down in an empty field. But it’s not true.

“No,” Juliana says, clearing her throat. “Seven years.” Valentina’s hands, which had been rubbing comforting circles with her thumbs on the back of Juliana’s hand, still.

“Seven?” she says. “But you’ve only…what were you doing for the first six?”

“Hiding.” Juliana pulls her hand away from Valentina’s, and regrets the move as soon as she does so. She misses the contact, and Valentina’s heartbeat, which has been echoing on the edge of Juliana’s hearing all week, jumps slightly. _She thinks she’s done something wrong_. “I don’t want to talk about it,” Juliana says, looking at Valentina as softly as she can manage. “I—“ Juliana stops, looking up towards the window, her hearing picking up the sound of sirens.

“Juliana?” Valentina is looking at her with concern. “Are you alright?”

“I have to go,” Juliana says, standing up off the couch. Valentina mirrors the motion, following Juliana as she walks towards the glass door of the balcony. Juliana hears Valentina’s heart do that little jump again, and she looks back. Valentina is biting her lip, brow furrowed with concern. “There’s—“ Juliana gestures towards the window. “There’s sirens somewhere. I need to go help.”

“You can hear sirens?” Valentina says. “I don’t hear anything.”

“I have super hearing,” Juliana says, raising a hand when Valentina starts to ask something more. “We can go over my whole list of powers next time, Valentina, but I really need to go.”

“But there will be a next time?” Valentina says. Despite herself, despite the urgency of the situation, the melancholy conversation about Krypton, the still-wailing sirens, despite it all, Juliana smiles.

“There will,” she says. “Goodbye, Valentina.”

“Bye.” Juliana turns, stepping out onto the balcony and launching into the air.

Behind her, she can still hear Valentina’s heartbeat, which, as Juliana shoots off into the sky, starts to pick up speed.

* * *

“We really need to stop meeting like this,” Valentina jokes as Juliana touches down beside her.

“This is different from usual,” Juliana says, glancing around them. They’re on the roof of the Carvajal Tower this time, instead of in Valentina’s office. It’s late, past midnight, and the wind is whipping around them, picking up the ends of Valentina’s hair and tossing them into the air. Juliana has to force herself to stay focused on Valentina’s face, and not get distracted by how long and pretty her hair is.

“Change of scenery,” Valentina says. “I think I might do all my work up here from now on. What do you think?”

“I think you’re drunk,” Juliana says, picking up the distinct scent of mezcal on Valentina’s breath. “I don’t think you should be drunk on a roof.”

“I don’t think the world should be so shitty, but we can’t all get what we want.” There’s that bitter, mocking tone again. Juliana wonders if it only comes out when Valentina is drunk.

“Valentina.”

“Don’t tell me to cheer up,” Valentina says, pointing at Juliana. “It’s late, and I’m drunk, and my father died ten years ago today, so I get to be angry.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you to cheer up,” Juliana says. “I was going to tell you to step away from the edge a bit. You’re drunk. It’s not safe. What if you lose your balance?”

“So what?” Valentina says, gesturing expansively. “You’ll catch me.” Juliana ignores the way that comment makes her stomach twist.

“Valentina—“

“Well, won’t you?”

“Of course I would catch you,” Juliana says, quietly enough that she’s surprised the wind doesn’t carry her voice away. “That’s not the point. I don’t want to have to.”

“Fine,” Valentina says, rolling her eyes and stepping towards Juliana. “I’ll step back so you can be lazy and—“ Valentina’s foot catches on a pipe that runs across the roof, and she begins to fall backwards, the bottle of mezcal slipping from her hand. Juliana is there in a heartbeat, one hand on Valentina’s waist, the other between her shoulder blades. Valentina blinks up at her, drunk and slow.

“See?” she says. “You caught me.”

“I did,” Juliana says. Her brain tells her to help Valentina upright and let her go, but her body absolutely does not listen, wanting to keep Valentina in her arms.

“We’re not even near the edge,” Valentina says, and it’s true. There’s no way she would’ve fallen over.

“No.” Still, Juliana’s arms don’t move, and what’s worse, Valentina doesn’t seem like she particularly wants them to. She gazes up at Juliana, those piercing eyes even more mesmerizing in the dark, illuminated by the city beneath them. Juliana can’t move, can’t look away. She’s not sure what she _can_ do, but none of it involves moving her hands away from the warmth of Valentina’s back, or expanding the insignificant distance between their faces.

The door to the roof stairwell opens, and Juliana stands Valentina up and moves back so fast that Valentina sways slightly in place.

“Valentina,” Jacobo says as he struts out onto the roof. “You shouldn’t be—“ He sees Juliana and stops in his tracks.

“Jacobo,” Valentina says, drawing out the vowels in his name. “Don’t _worry_ so much.” Jacobo says nothing, and Valentina rolls her eyes. “I’ll go home,” she says. “Whatever. Let me go get my bag.” She walks forward, this time watching her feet carefully and taking overly cautious steps. Jacobo holds the stairwell door open for her, but his eyes never leave Juliana.

“I’ll see you next time, Supergirl,” Valentina calls over her shoulder, and Juliana is silently thankful that, even drunk, Valentina has the presence of mind to not shout Juliana’s name in front of a stranger. Valentina disappears down the stairwell, but Jacobo doesn’t immediately follow. Instead, he keeps his eyes fixed on Juliana, until she finally gets uncomfortable enough to speak.

“I’m—“

“I know who you are,” Jacobo says, cutting her off. “You’re putting Valentina in danger.” That…shouldn’t offend Juliana. Jacobo clearly cares deeply for Valentina, and his job is literally to keep her safe. But it irks her nonetheless, and Juliana finds herself channeling a version of herself she had learned from the girls who bullied her as a child back home, and saved for her father.

“I am the most powerful person in this city,” Juliana says calmly. “Maybe the most powerful person on this planet. There is nowhere— _nowhere_ —Valentina is safer than she is by my side.”

“You are incredibly powerful,” Jacobo says, somehow making the statement sound like a threat. “And you have made yourself both untouchable and unlikable. You have thousands of enemies. Do you have anyone, besides yourself, who would stand between them and Valentina, if it came to that?” Juliana says nothing. “Stay away from Valentina,” Jacobo says. “If you care for her, stay away from Valentina.” With that, he disappears down the stairwell.

This time, Juliana doesn’t listen in on Valentina and her bodyguard. Instead, she launches off the roof, flying straight up. She picks up speed as she flies, going as fast as she can without catching her clothing on fire from sheer friction.

When her head is spinning from speed and her chest itches with the thinness of the air, miles above the surface of the Earth, Juliana stops, hovers, closes her eyes, and _screams_.

* * *

The next time they see each other, it’s because Valentina is screaming.

Juliana is half-dozing on the couch in their tiny apartment, with her mother tapping away on a laptop at the table a few feet away. When the sound reaches her ears, Juliana is pulled out of sleep, sitting bolt upright.

“Juliana?” Lupita looks away from her work and frowns at her daughter.

“It’s Valentina,” Juliana says. “She’s…”

“ _Oh God, oh God, oh God…someone_ help _!_ ” The sound is from somewhere far away, halfway across the city, but Juliana can hear it clear as day. Valentina is shouting, sobbing, and—Juliana zeroes in on her breathing—hyperventilating.

“I have to go.” Juliana leaps up from the couch, hurrying over to the window on the other side of the apartment and flinging it open.

“Be careful, Juliana,” Lupita says. Juliana doesn’t take the precious time to respond. She just launches out the window and takes off across the city so fast she’s shocked she doesn’t cause a sonic boom.

Valentina is on the street, ten feet away from the burning wreck of a car, when Juliana touches down beside her. Jacobo is standing beside Valentina, his arm wrapped around her shoulders, his face grim.

“Valentina,” Juliana says as she lands. “Are you alright?” Valentina doesn’t respond, instead just crying harder. “Val. What happened?”

“A car bomb,” Jacobo says. Valentina makes a choked sound and hides her face in her bodyguard’s shoulder. “She’s alright.”

“Good,” Juliana says, breathing out a breath she’s been holding since she woke up in her apartment. “Good. Was anyone in the car?” Valentina groans, an agonized, tortured sound.

“Alirio,” she whispers.

“The driver,” Jacobo says. Juliana closes her eyes, rubbing at her face.

There’s no heartbeat in the car. There’s no way anyone could’ve survived that.

“Okay,” Juliana says. “Okay.” She steps forward, facing the burning wreck. She takes a deep breath, channeling a power she doesn’t use often. It’s not one she has particularly good control over, but it’s needed now. _Valentina_ needs it now.

Juliana exhales, and her breath billows outward in a cloud of frost, spreading over the car. The fire dies instantly, the steady stream of smoke tapering off. The cold ices the windshield over, and Juliana is glad for it. Whatever the bomb made Alirio look like, it would do Valentina no good to see it right now.

There are already people gathering on both sides of the street, phones out, filming Juliana, the car, Valentina crying into Jacobo’s shoulder. Juliana glares at them all as best she can, but none of them seem particularly inclined to pay attention. Juliana steps back over to where Jacobo and Valentina are standing.

“The press will be here soon,” she says quietly to Jacobo. “They will have a lot of questions, and it won’t do Valentina any good to be here for that.” Jacobo nods, a muscle in his jaw working—with anger, grief, suspicion, or a combination of all three, Juliana can’t tell. “I can get her out of here,” Juliana says. “I can take her home, keep her safe, but you have to tell me where to go.”

“Okay,” Jacobo says. He rattles off Valentina’s address, quietly enough that none of the phone cameras pointed at them will pick it up, and Juliana gains a bit of respect for him, how he immediately and unquestioningly prioritizes Valentina’s safety over his personal distrust of Juliana.

“Thank you,” Juliana says, holding Jacobo’s gaze until he nods in acknowledgement. Gently, he pries Valentina’s face from his shoulder. He presses his hands to her cheeks and holds her gaze.

“Vale,” he says firmly. “Supergirl is going to take you home, okay? I will be there as soon as I can.” Through her tears, Valentina nods. Jacobo kisses her on the forehead and releases her face. With a gentle hand on her back, Jacobo guides Valentina into Juliana’s already open arms. Valentina leans into her side, resting her head on Juliana’s shoulder. Juliana picks her up easily, Valentina’s knees over one arm and her shoulders in the other. Valentina doesn’t fight the movement. Her aching cries have turned into quiet sobs, which are somehow that much more painful.

“Supergirl,” Jacobo says before Juliana can slip into the air. She looks over at him. “Thank you.” Juliana wants to say it’s nothing, wants to say of course, no problem, for Valentina. Instead, she returns Jacobo’s gaze and nods.

“You’re welcome,” she says, and lifts up into the air.

Juliana flies to the address Jacobo had given her slowly. It can be dizzying for humans to be so high up with nothing beneath them. Juliana had learned that quickly in the first few months of her activities as Supergirl—rescuing people from high places is less well received when they get motion sickness on the way down. Valentina, however, seems to barely register what’s happening, not even twitching as they fly between skyscrapers.

“Val,” Juliana says softly into her ear as they approach the building Jacobo had mentioned. “I need you to tell me which apartment is yours, okay? So I can get you home.” Valentina nods, swallowing hard.

“Penthouse,” she whispers, her voice hoarse. “The kitchen window is unlocked.” Juliana flies them over. Opening the window is a bit difficult with her hands full, but she manages it, and fits them both through the opening easily.

Juliana touches down in the kitchen of Valentina’s apartment, some part of her wishing desperately that she was here under different circumstances. She thinks, for a moment, that she should probably set Valentina down, but Valentina looks like she might fall apart if she did. Her fingers are gripping at the t-shirt Juliana is wearing, warping the fabric, and while she’s no longer crying, she looks so _empty_ that Juliana can barely look at her.

Juliana does a quick scan of the apartment with her x-ray vision and locates the bedroom, down a hall off to her left. She starts to walk, still holding Valentina in her arms. Valentina doesn’t seem aware of where she is or what’s happening. She’s staring up at Juliana, and under different circumstances, it might make Juliana’s heart leap, but Valentina is spaced out, traumatized, probably not even aware of what direction her gaze is pointed.

Once Juliana has set Valentina down on her bed, she kneels down beside it, taking one of Valentina’s hands in her own. She holds her gaze on Valentina’s face until Valentina returns it, exhausted eyes staring dully at her own. Juliana squeezes Valentina’s hand lightly and offers her a small, sad smile.

“You’re home,” she says. “You’re safe, alright?” Valentina nods. Juliana kisses the back of Valentina’s hand. She doesn’t know how to offer physical comfort, but Valentina doesn’t protest, so Juliana thinks it was likely the right thing to do. “Can I get you anything?” Juliana asks. Valentina takes a long, shaky breath.

“Um, yes,” she says. “Yes, a cup of tea. Tea would be…nice.”

“Okay.” Juliana squeezes Valentina’s hand one more time and retreats to the kitchen. She goes through Valentina’s cupboards, looking for tea. Many of them are empty, or filled with fancy-looking cookware covered in a thin layer of dust. Juliana knows this is the right address, and it must be the right apartment, but it seems hardly lived in at all. Valentina has been in the city since Eva went to prison and Guillermo stepped down from the company five years ago, from what Juliana remembers, but the apartment is mostly barren and functional, almost Spartan. Not at all what Juliana would imagine for Valentina.

Eventually, Juliana finds the tea. She boils a cup of water with what Panchito had dubbed her “laser vision” when she first discovered it and sets a teabag in it, carrying it back to the bedroom.

Valentina is sitting up. She’d changed her clothes while Juliana had been in the kitchen, and she’s now wrapped up in a too-big hoodie and sweatpants, but her makeup is still streaked down her face. She’s on her phone when Juliana walks in.

“There’s already articles blaming Eva,” Valentina says, looking up at Juliana. “It’s _insane_. They think Eva could do this? She couldn’t—she would never—“ Valentina shakes her head, lost for words.

“Val,” Juliana says softly. She sets the cup of tea on the bedside table and gently takes Valentina’s phone out of her hands, clicking it off and setting it next to the tea. “Don’t look at that right now.”

“How could they think Eva would do this?” Valentina asks, looking up at Juliana. “She loves me. She loves—loved Alirio, he’s worked for us forever. She would never—“ Juliana cups Valentina’s face in her palm, running her thumb over her cheekbone gently.

“You were the one who told me not to listen to the press,” she says. Valentina almost smiles, leaning into Juliana’s hand.

“I know,” she murmurs. “I just…Alirio has worked for our family my whole life. He has a wife, he has two kids. He has a grandson who’s three. And now…” Valentina seems like she’s about to start crying again.

“Come with me?” Juliana says, moving her hand from Valentina’s face to take her hand. Valentina nods, unquestioning, and pushes herself to her feet. Juliana leads her into the small bathroom attached to the bedroom. “Where do you keep your makeup wipes?”

“Third drawer down,” Valentina says. Juliana opens the drawer, pulling them out and setting them on the counter. She guides Valentina to lean against the counter, facing Juliana.

“Stay still,” she murmurs, pulling out one of the wipes. Valentina obeys, standing still as Juliana gently begins to wipe the streaked mascara from her face. They’re inches apart, and Juliana can hear Valentina’s heartbeat, quick but steady. Valentina’s hands are gripping the edge of the counter she’s leaning on, and Juliana’s are on her face, one holding her chin still and the other wiping away the tear tracks on her cheeks.

“Thank you,” Valentina says when Juliana steps away. Her face is clear of makeup now, and Juliana can see the exhaustion in her eyes all the more clearly for it. “I’m sorry, it must seem ridiculous to you. You lost an entire world of people, and here I am crying over one.”

“No,” Juliana says, the firmness of her voice surprising even her. “No, not at all. If one life didn’t matter, the world wouldn’t, either.” Valentina smiles, just a bit.

“That’s…” She clears her throat. “I like that. I like that a lot.”

“I’m glad,” Juliana says, returning the small, shaky smile.

They walk back into the bedroom. Valentina sits down on the bed, picking up the tea from the bedside table and sipping it.

“Are you going to be alright?” Juliana says. Valentina nods. “Good.” Julian begins to step away, but Valentina’s hand flies out, catching Juliana by the arm.

“No,” Valentina says, her voice suddenly desperate. “No, please. Stay.” Juliana hesitates. “Please, Juls. I don’t want to be alone right now.”

“Okay,” Juliana says. “Okay. Of course, I’ll stay.” She sits down beside Valentina on the bed. Valentina immediately leans into her side, putting her head on Juliana’s shoulder, and Juliana wraps an arm around her. She leans her head against the top of Valentina’s, closing her eyes.

“Hey,” Valentina says after a moment. “You own real clothes.” She tugs at the hem of Juliana’s t-shirt. “And you’re barefoot.” Juliana looks down at her feet. She is, in fact, barefoot.

“I didn’t have time to put shoes on,” she says. “I was sleeping, and I heard…I heard you crying, and I just—went.” Valentina lifts her head and kisses Juliana on the cheek.

“Thank you,” she whispers, kissing her again. Juliana can’t come up with the words to respond. She feels paralyzed, pinned down by Valentina’s lips on her cheek. “You were sleeping in _jeans_?” Valentina taps the side of Juliana’s leg, and the intensity of the moment is broken.

“I…yes?” Juliana says. “Is that bad?” Valentina laughs, and it’s not quite that lilting sound that Juliana loves so much, but it’s close, and it’s genuine.

“You really _are_ an alien, aren’t you?” she says. “It’s not bad, it’s just _weird_. Aren’t you uncomfortable?”

“Not really,” Juliana says. “Should I be?” Valentina shakes her head, draining her tea.

“I think that should be added to your list of superpowers,” she says. “Sleeps in jeans comfortably. Bizarre.” Valentina sets the empty mug on her bedside table next to her phone. “Come on.” She slides out from under Juliana’s arm and scoots back on the bed, making space for Juliana before lying down and stretching out. Juliana hesitates uncertainly. Valentina smiles at her. “What are you waiting for? Lie down.” Juliana, her heart pounding, does. She leaves a foot or so between them, stretching out her body to mirror Valentina.

“We should do something normal sometime,” Valentina says after a minute. She’s staring at Juliana, and that butterfly-under-a-microscope feeling is returning, making Juliana’s hands itch to hide her face.

“Normal?” she says, quirking an eyebrow at Valentina. Valentina smiles.

“Yes, something normal,” she says. “Like, I don’t know. Shopping or coffee or lunch or something. Something that isn’t in my office in the middle of the night.”

“Valentina…” Juliana is smiling too, now. She can’t help it. Valentina is infectious. “I can’t do that. People would recognize me.”

“No, no,” Valentina says. “You could wear real clothes, and, I don’t know, glasses or something. No one would look twice.”

“Glasses?” Juliana laughs. “What is this, a spy movie?”

“ _Shush_.” Valentina is holding Juliana’s hand between them. Juliana isn’t sure when that happened. “I’m being serious. I want us to be friends. Real friends, you know? Don’t you want that?” Juliana looks down at their joined hands, where Valentina is rubbing slow circles on the back of Juliana’s hand with her thumb.

“Yes,” Juliana says. “Yes, I want that, too.” They lie there in silence for awhile. It’s strangely comfortable, despite Valentina’s eyes never leaving her face, pinning her down. Juliana gets used to the feeling, the way her skin prickles under Valentina’s gaze. She listens to Valentina’s heartbeat, mostly, the steady _tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump_ of blood in her chest. It’s slower, now, quieter. It’s calming enough that Juliana stops noticing the buzzing of the lamp on the bedside table, the never-ending electric hum of the city outside the window. It’s evening, so it isn’t as loud as it gets at night, but Juliana loses track of it all the same, concentrating instead on the sound of Valentina’s heartbeat, the scent of her conditioner, the tiny, faded acne scars on her face. Juliana has similar marks, just as faint and hard to notice. It’s incredible to her, for some reason. Opposite ends of the universe, different homes, different lives, different species, and they both picked at their acne as teenagers. Serendipity, Juliana supposes. Coincidence.

“You should take me flying someday,” Valentina says, after so long that they’re both half-asleep, eyelids drifting even as the sun begins to set outside. Juliana hums softly, noncommittally. “Under different circumstances, I think I might like it.”

“You’d be the first,” Juliana says. “Most people are scared up there. They’re afraid of falling.”

“I don’t think I’d be afraid,” Valentina says. “I’d be with you.” Juliana smiles. Valentina shifts closer on the bed, pressing a kiss to the back of Juliana’s hand. “You wouldn’t let me fall.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> putting eva in the place of lex luthor was. not a decision i took lightly. it worked narratively; we'll see how it shakes out in the end bc not gonna lie i don't have a plan yet. but she's certainly not trying to kill val i'll tell you that much.
> 
> so what do yall think? i'm on tumblr @daisys-quake and on twitter @thoughtsintoink if you wanna shoot me a message, and comments and kudos are why i post this stuff :) please leave me one/both if you liked it!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> should i be posting this right now, since chapter three isn't anywhere near done and i don't see myself finishing it in the near future? probably not! am i posting it? absolutely! because yall might be the nicest fandom i've ever written for, and i am absolutely craving the validation y'alls sweet comments are bringing me. i love you guys, and i hope this lives up to your expectations <3 (also. there may be a chapter four because there is just Too Much i want to tell in this story. i accidentally built a universe i want to spend awhile exploring, so yeah. hopefully yall are good with that)

It’s still dark out when Juliana wakes up.

She glances over at the alarm clock on Valentina’s bedside table. The glowing numbers proclaim it to be just after four in the morning. Juliana isn’t shocked that she’s awake; she had been napping that evening, and it had been barely eight, the last time Juliana had checked the clock before she and Valentina fell asleep.

_Valentina_.

Juliana is lying on her back, and Valentina is curled into her side, half on top of her. Her fingers are twisted into Juliana’s shirt, holding on in her sleep. Her head lies on Juliana’s chest, hair wild and splayed out around them, and Juliana marvels once again at how long it is, how soft it is against her skin. One of them has pulled the blankets over them in their sleep. Juliana’s hands rest on Valentina’s back, her skin radiating warmth even through the hoodie she wears. Juliana feels…calm. She feels at _peace_ , in a way she hasn’t since she came to Earth.

(Really, she’s not sure she’s ever felt this way at all.)

Some part of Juliana tells her she should probably extricate herself from Valentina’s embrace. It whispers to her that Valentina wouldn’t want to wake up like this, wrapped around a girl she barely knows. It’s probably right, but Juliana can’t bring herself to move. She feels _good_. She isn’t used to feeling good, and she’d rather not give it up.

Juliana drifts in and out of sleep for a few hours, listening to Valentina’s heartbeat when she’s closer to consciousness. It’s slower in Valentina’s sleep, and the sound keeps Juliana in a lull—not quite conscious, not quite ready to be conscious. She lies there, holding Valentina in her arms, until the sun rises over the city, and the light creeps in through the window on the other side of the room. It slips first along the ceiling, and eventually down onto the bed, bathing them both in yellow light. Juliana can feel it making her stronger, rejuvenating her, filling her body with power, and while it doesn’t have the same effect on Valentina, being human, it does wake her up.

“Mm.” Valentina makes a wordless noise as she opens her eyes and squints against the light. She rolls off of Juliana, freeing her arms, but she doesn’t go far, stretching out on her back only inches away. “Good morning.” She looks over at Juliana, her eyes sparkling in the morning sunlight. Juliana smiles at her, and her heart feels like a buoy in her chest.

“Good morning.” They stay like that, looking at each other, for a long moment before Valentina’s mouth quirks into a smile.

“What?” she says.

“What, what?” Juliana says back.

“What, what, what?” Valentina echoes, making them both laugh. “No, seriously, why are you looking at me like that?” Juliana’s teasing smile slips away, and her eyes shift from Valentina’s face to the far wall.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she says. She sits up, stretching her arms and rolling her neck, enjoying the way the muscles pull and the joints crack. Valentina doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t follow up on her question, and Juliana is grateful. She doesn’t know how she was looking at Valentina, but she doesn’t _want_ to know, doesn’t want to _think_ about it.

(She knows. She’s just not quite ready to admit it, yet.)

“I should go,” Juliana says.

“No,” Valentina says immediately. “No, please don’t.”

“Val…” Juliana sighs. “I’m glad you’re alright. You know I am. And you’ll see me again, I promise, but right now…I need to go.”

“Please?” Valentina is gazing at her pleadingly, and Juliana almost crumbles, almost pulls them both back under the covers and promises to stay _forever_.

“My mother will be worried about me,” Juliana says instead. Valentina goes quiet, and Juliana glances over at her. Valentina is frowning.

“I thought you were alone,” Valentina says. “You said you were the only one left.” Juliana freezes.

“I did,” she says, remembering the conversation. “I…”

“You lied.” Juliana reaches up, rubbing at her eyes tiredly.

“My mother is…” She shrugs. “She wouldn’t want anyone to know about her. She wouldn’t want me to see you, if she knew I was.”

“Why?” Valentina says, propping herself up on an elbow.

“She’s…” Juliana tries to find the words. “She’s not like me. She wants to freeze our world in amber. She wants to turn our apartment into Krypton and stay there, forever.”

“She can’t let go of the past,” Valentina says, seeing straight through Juliana’s confused words and scattered thoughts, and Juliana nods in agreement.

“Are you mad at me?” Juliana says, looking down at Valentina. “For lying?” Valentina considers the question.

“No,” she says. “But only because I’m happy right now. I liked waking up with you holding me.” Juliana feels herself blush, her cheeks and neck getting hot.

“Oh,” she murmurs. Valentina smiles at her, blushing herself, and they both laugh a bit at themselves.

“I shouldn’t feel happy, should I?” Valentina says. “Alirio is dead, and the press blames Eva, and here I am laughing.” Juliana shakes her head. She reaches out and takes one of Valentina’s hands.

“You’re allowed to feel more than one thing at once,” she says. Valentina squeezes her hand. Juliana lets go, slipping her legs out of bed. “I really do need to go,” she says.

“I know,” Valentina says, giving in. Then, “You slept in jeans again, didn’t you?”

Juliana is laughing the whole way out of the apartment. Laughing in the kitchen as Valentina hugs her, kisses her on the cheek, tells her that she meant it when she said they should do something normal, that she meant it about the glasses. Laughing as she opens the window, as Valentina gets in one last hug before Juliana leaps out into the air.

Laughing and smiling as she flies home, the sunlight warm against her skin, the breeze cool through her shirt, the phantom weight of Valentina sleeping in her arms still resting against her chest.

* * *

“Where were you?” Lupita says as Juliana closes the door behind herself. “I’ve been worried. You can’t just disappear like that.”

“I know, Mama,” Juliana says. “I was…” She doesn’t really have a good excuse. The truth isn’t an option, but what else can she say? Any lie she makes up about why she disappeared overnight to help Valentina is just as damning.

“I saw on the news what happened,” Lupita says. “Where did you go after you saved that Carvajal girl?” Juliana says nothing. “You looked familiar with her, there were videos. You’ve been seeing her, haven’t you?”

“Mama—“

“Why would you do something so stupid?” Lupita says, shaking her head.

“It’s not stupid,” Juliana says, suddenly finding herself angry. “Why are we even _here_ , Mama? The whole world died, and we’re alive. But what’s the _point_ of that, if we spend the rest of our lives locking ourselves away?”

“We aren’t,” Lupita says. “I’ve allowed you to go play hero—“

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” Juliana pushes her hair out of her face roughly, and suddenly all the peace and tranquility she had been feeling that morning is evaporating. “Being Supergirl—it’s not being a _person_. It’s not being _me_. Supergirl is what I do to honor Rao, but me— _Juliana_ —I do nothing to honor _her_.” Lupita says nothing, but her arms are crossed, her jaw set. It’s the same stubborn look Juliana gets sometimes, the same immovable posture. Chino had pointed it out once or twice, affectionately on his better days. _Like mother, like daughter_. He’d been right. Too stubborn to die with their world, and now too stubborn to live in their new one. “Mama, Valentina—we’re friends. She’s good to me. She’s good _for_ me, alright? I need that in my life. I need friends, I need a world outside of this apartment and apart from chasing sirens all over the city. I need to _live_ , or else why did we bother escaping? If I’m not happy, if I’m not even _trying_ to _be_ happy, I may as well have died on Krypton.”

“But can’t you find a way to be happy that doesn’t mean risking so much?” Lupita says. “That girl’s sister is Eva Carvajal. _Eva Carvajal_ , Juliana. If she found out her little sister was friends with an alien, she would send someone after you in a heartbeat. She’s done it before, to that boy who made the news a few years ago.”

“Eva Carvajal is in jail,” Juliana says. “What can she do?”

“She bombed her sister’s car,” Lupita says. “What _wouldn’t_ she do?”

“That wasn’t Eva.”

“What?” Lupita shakes her head. “Who told you that? Valentina?” Juliana says nothing. “Juliana, if she’s defending her sister, maybe they’re allies. Maybe she’s just trying to—”

“Oh my God.” Juliana covers her face with her hands. “Mama, could you please just… _not_ , right now? I’m hungry, and a man died yesterday, and I just—please, for once, just let me _have_ something.”

“I didn’t know you thought that,” Lupita says, her tone shifting from one of anger, fear, and protectiveness to one of hurt. Juliana shakes her head slightly, confused. “That I don’t let you have things.”

“It’s not that you don’t let me have _anything_ , it’s…” Juliana stares down at her feet. They’re still bare, and suddenly Juliana finds herself missing how it felt for her feet to get cold on the floor. She can’t get cold here, can’t get hot or cold, or any other kind of hurt. Juliana misses getting hurt.

Nothing can touch her beneath the yellow sun.

“You had a longer life on Krypton than I did,” Juliana says, looking back up at her mother. “And if you’re content spending this life doing nothing but remembering our last one, that’s up to you. But I’m not. I want friends, Mama. I want a _life_ on Earth, a real one. I want a future.”

“You can have that,” Lupita says. “But please, not with Valentina Carvajal. That girl is from a dangerous family. She will only make our lives more complicated.”

“How uncomplicated do you want it?” Juliana says, spreading her arms helplessly. “What about your life is complicated _now_? You sit in a room all day in your own head. If anything is complicated, it’s because you made it so.” Lupita says nothing, and Juliana huffs in frustration. “You know what? I’m going to go.”

“Are you going to see Valentina?” Lupita says. “It’s not worth it. Don’t risk us getting discovered. What will happen if the world finds out who you are, where you live? Do you think they will ever let _Supergirl_ rest?“

“It _is_ worth it.” The words surprise Juliana even as she speaks them. “That risk—I don’t care. _She_ is worth it.” Lupita is speechless, and Juliana brushes past her to the bedroom they share.

She almost goes for one of her combat suits, but hesitates as her fingertips brush the material. She can’t hear any sirens—not any urgent ones, at any rate—and the way the burning car wreck from the day before had smelled is still burned into her mind.

Today is a day for peace, Juliana decides. She had woken up softly. Regardless of her fight with Lupita, she will make the rest of the day as gentle as its beginning, and hope that Valentina is somewhere doing the same.

Juliana decides to walk. She never walks; she flies, high enough in the sky that people don’t notice her, low enough that planes and helicopters aren’t a problem. But…if she flies, she’ll start trying to find someone to save, something to do to honor Rao, and right now, she wants to do what she’d told her mother she wanted to do: honor herself. So she climbs out the window of their apartment rather than walk past her mother again, and takes the fire escape down onto the street.

Juliana wanders for awhile before she finds a diner in the alien district. It’s a small district, nicknamed Martiantown by humans (despite the fact that, as far as Juliana knows, there has never been any sentient life on Mars), and a downtrodden one, but it’s growing. Juliana rarely spends any time there—she rarely spends any time anywhere on the ground—but still, its streets feel more like home as she walks through them than any others she’s flown over since arriving on Earth.

She’s in plain clothes, a jacket and jeans. She wants to test Valentina’s theory, about how no one will recognize her out of the suit, and so far, it’s held up. The people walking the streets pay her no mind, though a man with blue skin and tentacles for hair gives her an odd look as he passes. That may have more to do with her flawlessly human-passing appearance than her superhero status, though. Such a thing is rare. Most human-passing aliens leave the district, move to other parts of the city, other jobs; they erase their pasts and assimilate—for the money or the safety or simply the feeling of _belonging_ , Juliana doesn’t know.

The diner is small, unremarkable, and Juliana only stops there because her stomach is growling too loudly to ignore. She has some cash in her wallet, as she always does in case of emergencies, and she follows the waitress to a table silently. The waitress is an alien; of what species or planet, Juliana has no idea. Her eyes are green—irises, pupils, and all—and faceted, glittering out from a scaled face. Juliana is more comforted by her strange appearance than anything. She imagines that that sort of outward _otherness_ , though infinitely more difficult in a social sense, would be much easier to reconcile oneself to than the silent, invisible feeling of being _alien_ that Juliana experiences. She’s so close to being human, so close to being _normal_ , but she can hear people’s heartbeats when they lie. She can breath frost and shoot pure heat out of her eyes. She can’t get cold, she can’t get hurt, she doesn’t even know if she’ll age and die. She looks like she belongs in this world, but she’ll never be a _part_ of it.

Juliana orders and eats in silence. She’s been out to restaurants only a scant few times since arriving on Earth. Lupita, before she became so consumingly reclusive, was always worried that their strange accents will garner too much attention. Juliana thought the fear was ridiculous. They live in a city of millions. Most humans don’t care much who they eat beside in public.

When Juliana is finished eating, as she is drinking the last of her coffee—she loves the drink; she has no idea how she ever lived without it on Krypton—an old woman sits down across from her. Juliana tenses, automatically going on guard in response to the intrusion.

“How did you find your meal?” the old woman asks. She seems to sense Juliana’s tension and quickly moves to defuse it. “I’m sorry, I own the restaurant. You’re new here, and I wanted to make sure you liked it.”

“It was excellent,” Juliana says, relaxing slightly. “You should be proud.”

“Oh, I am,” the woman says. “It’s not often I have the privilege of serving a superhero.” Juliana tenses so quickly that the handle of the coffee mug crumbles to ceramic dust between her fingers. The woman chuckles. “Relax, child,” she says. “No one else has recognized you. No one expects you to be here, so no one is looking.”

“How did _you_ recognize me?” Juliana says. The woman shrugs.

“I was looking.” Juliana nods slowly.

“Where are you from?” she asks.

“Six blocks east of here.”

“Six…you’re human?” The old woman nods. “But you run…” Juliana gestures around, at the alien waitress, the paintings from other planets hanging on the walls, the earthly facsimiles of interstellar delicacies on the menu, the mostly alien clientele.

“An alien diner,” the woman says. “Yes.” She smiles at Juliana. “Everyone deserves a place to eat and feel welcome. Do you think you’re the only person trying to do good in this world?” Juliana looks down at her empty plate, the damaged mug.

“It feels that way sometimes.”

“Only because you stay up there.” The woman gestures upwards. “There’s no one else up there but the birds, and they don’t care to help anyone.” Juliana laughs. “Come down sometimes,” the woman says. “You’ll see. All the people you help are trying to help each other, too.”

“That’s…” Juliana clears her throat. “That’s good advice. Thank you…” She hesitates.

“Perlita,” the woman says.

“Perlita,” Juliana repeats. “Thank you. For the meal, and the advice.”

“Any time,” Perlita says. “You’re welcome here anytime. For food or advice.”

“Would you mind if I brought a friend next time?” Juliana says. “A human?”

“Of course not,” Perlita says, smiling at her. The alien waitress returns to the table, smiling a hello at Perlita.

“Check?” she asks Juliana.

“No,” Perlita says. “Hers is on the house.” The waitress nods, taking Juliana’s empty plate and mug—she doesn’t comment on the broken handle—and walking away.

“I can’t accept that,” Juliana says, shaking her head and reaching for her wallet. “No, let me pay.”

“No,” Perlita says. “Do you get paid for flying around, trying to save the world?”

“I…no,” Juliana says. “But that’s not why I—“

“No matter why you do it,” Perlita says. “You deserve a little gratitude, and you’re not about to get it from the press.” She stands. “Consider it a gift, if it makes it easier to accept.” It doesn’t. “I hope to see you again in here? With your friend?”

“Of course,” Juliana says, standing as well. “I will be paying next time.” Perlita laughs.

“Good,” she says. “Well, it was nice to meet you…” She glances around, as if to make sure no one is listening, before she leans in slightly and whispers, “Supergirl.”

“No,” Juliana says. “No, my name is Juliana.”

“Juliana,” Perlita amends smoothly. “It was nice to meet you, Juliana.” Juliana smiles and nods, returning the pleasantry before Perlita walks away and Juliana slips back out onto the street.

* * *

Valentina isn’t in her apartment or her office.

Juliana walks to both, enjoying her recently discovered anonymity. It seems impossible to her, but Perlita and Valentina are absolutely right. No one expects to see Supergirl in plain clothes, on the streets, walking like any human in the city, and so no one gives Juliana a second glance. She’s completely, thoroughly free.

Walking kills time, Juliana discovers. By flying, even at a slow pace, she can get anywhere in the city within minutes. Walking takes ten minutes, fifteen minutes, half an hour to get anywhere. She enjoys it. She’s not used to not having to _think_. In the air, she’s always listening for the next crisis, or driving herself mad with the buzzing of the electricity in the air, and at home, she’s always absorbed with the memories of Krypton strewn about the apartment, and all the things she hasn’t said to her mother that need to be said.

As it turns out, the electricity is faint when overlaid with the sounds of the street, Earth feels a lot less like Krypton on the ground, and earlier, she had already said most of what she so desperately needed to say.

Juliana wanders through a park. It’s been years since she’s been in one. The last time was barely a year after arriving on Earth, and that had been a hurried movement through and onward. She’s never simply _walked_ in one before, taken the time to _exist_ there. She likes it, likes sitting on a bench for awhile and watching people pass by, likes buying coffee from a little stand set up on the path and cooling it off with her frost breath when no one is looking, likes listening to the music from the headphones of each passing jogger and cataloguing the lyrics of the songs she likes to look up on the internet later.

Juliana thinks she’d like to be here with Valentina. It would probably seem foolish to Valentina that Juliana is so enamored with something as simple as a park—but then again, perhaps it wouldn’t. Valentina has listened to everything Juliana has ever told her with exactly the weight Juliana has said things with. Why should this be any different?

Juliana wanders the city all day, checking Valentina’s apartment and office when she passes by them, but she isn’t crushed when she doesn’t find the girl she’s hypothetically looking for. Juliana is much more preoccupied with the city by now. She’s spent years trying to protect it, keeping its people safe, and it’s only now that she’s beginning to actually _live_ in it.

By the time the sun is setting in the west, Juliana finds herself back on the corner beneath Valentina’s apartment. This time, when Juliana looks up through the walls of the building, she sees Valentina, sitting in her apartment on one of the barstools at the high counter in the kitchen. A bottle that Juliana doesn’t bother to identify sits in front of her. Unbidden, a smile comes to Juliana’s face, and she mentally goes over everything she wants to tell Valentina about: the diner, Perlita, the park; the incredible, beautiful mundanity of walking through a city that Juliana has risked her life for a dozen times over without ever taking the time to get to know.

For a moment, Juliana considers just using the front door and taking the elevator up to Valentina’s apartment. She’d like to see Valentina’s face when she opens her front door to Juliana standing in the hallway. But the building is fancy, high security; it seems like the sort of place that would have a front desk and a list her name would have to be on to get in. Instead, Juliana slips into an alley by the building and lifts up into the sky, ascending into the growing darkness of the night. She reaches the kitchen window in moments and, hovering outside, reaches out a gentle fist to tap on it.

Valentina is seated facing the window, and as soon as she hears the tapping, she looks up. She smiles at Juliana as she gets up to open the window for her, and immediately, Juliana knows something is wrong. The smile holds none of Valentina’s usual vibrant light, and once the window is open and Juliana is floating in, she knows why. Juliana can smell alcohol in the air.

Valentina is drinking again.

“Hello,” Juliana says as she rights herself, her shoes landing noiselessly on the floor. Valentina hugs her and whispers a greeting in her ear, and Juliana does her best to ignore the way her skin prickles pleasantly at the sensation.

“Where have you been all day?” Valentina asks, taking one of Juliana’s hands absentmindedly. She grabs the bottle from the counter and guides them both to the couch in the living room, where she sits as she pours herself another glass and sets the bottle on the coffee table. Juliana wants to answer the question with a speech, to gush about the city and Martiantown and how she feels like a _person_ for the first time in years, like more than just the specter of an extinct society, more than a restless ghost in a body built from the dust of a shattered planet, more than an empty husk, reanimated by the trauma of watching her world die. She wants to say that she’s been learning how it feels to be _human_. But she can tell that Valentina needs to talk more than she does, so she doesn’t say any of that.

Instead, she says, “I could ask the same of you.”

“Work,” Valentina says, taking a long sip of her drink.

“Val,” Juliana says softly, shaking her head. “The day after…?” Valentina drains the glass and goes to pour another.

“That’s exactly why I’m working,” she says. “The media has already gone insane. Blaming Eva, blaming aliens, blaming anti-alien terrorists. Some of them are even blaming _me_. The youngest Carvajal, you know, even her brother left her, she must be following in her sister’s footsteps, must be losing it, too, getting violent—“

“Valentina.” Juliana catches Valentina’s wrist as she goes to start on her drink. “Stop.” Valentina deflates, watching listlessly as Juliana gently takes the glass from her and sets it on the coffee table, next to the bottle. “You drink too much,” Juliana murmurs, holding Valentina’s hand in both of hers and absently playing with her fingers.

“What else should I _do_?” Valentina says, and the earnest desperation in her voice makes Juliana’s chest ache.

“Talk to me?” Juliana looks up from where her fingers are tangled with Valentina’s. Valentina shakes her head immediately, vigorously.

“I don’t want to _talk_ ,” she says. “I don’t want to _think_ about it. Not Eva, not the press, not—not Alirio, not any of it. I just…I want to _forget_. You know?”

(Juliana remembers her father. There was no alcohol on Krypton; instead, there was a translucent, purple gas that one could buy in bags. It was cheap, intoxicating, and readily available. It made most people docile, happy, agreeable—better.

Not Chino.)

“I know.” Juliana lets go of Valentina’s hand.

“Juls?” Valentina is looking at her curiously now, her head leaning into that adorable, curious tilt. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Juliana says, looking down and away. “We’re talking about you.”

“We can get back to me.” Valentina scoots closer, reaching out and lifting Juliana’s chin with one hand so she can look her in the eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Just…” Juliana sighs. “There wasn’t alcohol on Krypton, not like you have here, but there were ways to get…” She waves a hand vaguely, intending to communicate intoxication, and Valentina nods, picking up on the meaning. “My father…there wasn’t a word for it there, it was shameful and almost unheard of, but here…you could call him an addict. And when he…indulged, he would get angry. Violent. So thinking about it brought up bad memories.”

“I had no idea,” Valentina says. She’s gazing at Juliana with so much _kindness_ in her eyes that Juliana has to look away, has to swallow hard.

It hurts, to be looked at with love.

“You couldn’t have,” Juliana says.

“Do I…make you uncomfortable?” Valentina says. Her hand is still holding Juliana’s face, her thumb stroking Juliana’s cheek lightly, next to her mouth. “When I’m drunk?”

“No,” Juliana says without hesitation. “No, never. I know you would never hurt me.”

“Because you trust me? Or because you can’t get hurt?” Juliana raises a hand, covering the one Valentina has pressed to her cheek.

“I trust you,” she says, and the words come out with more weight than she intends them to have. Valentina smiles.

“Either way,” she says, and Juliana lets their hands fall from her face, still tangled together. “I won’t drink around you anymore.”

“No, Val, don’t worry about—“

“No.” Valentina squeezes Juliana’s hand. “Our lives are hard enough without us making them harder for each other. We need to stick together, you know?” Juliana nods. _Stick together_. It sounds like something friends would say—not just casual friends, but _real_ friends. The kind Juliana sees on TV, the kind that go through everything together—help each other, hold each other, defend each other, stick together. Juliana likes the sound of it.

“I’ll cut back.” Juliana jolts out of her thoughts at the words. Valentina shrugs and smiles at her. “My doctor will be happy about it anyway. So, what did you do today? Save anyone exciting? A guy, maybe?”

“I…went to the park,” Juliana says, opting to ignore the comment about _a guy_. Juliana had found the word _lesbian_ in a book she had read about Earth culture when she first arrived. There hadn’t been a similar concept on Krypton—people had simply been people, attraction had simply been attraction—but Juliana likes the label, likes how it sounds in her head, likes how it feels to think of herself as such. She’s not sure how Valentina would react to such a confession, though; it’s a big deal here, apparently, for someone to be gay. She can’t imagine Valentina ever judging anyone for something so integral, so personal, but…they’ve had enough hard conversation for one night.

“The park?” Valentina echoes. “Why?” Juliana shrugs.

“I wanted to go for a walk.” She kicks off her sneakers and pulls her feet up onto the couch, tucking them under herself. “I…I haven’t ever done that before. Here on Earth, I mean.”

“What, never?” Valentina mirrors Juliana’s posture, and suddenly they’re close again, maybe a foot between their faces.

“No,” Juliana says. “I told you, I was in hiding for most of the time I’ve been here. And now, Supergirl doesn’t really have time to walk in the park. But, today, I wanted to test out what you said. About how if I wasn’t in my uniform, no one would recognize me.”

“And?”

“And you were right.” Valentina grins triumphantly, and Juliana can’t help but smile, as well. “It was _amazing_ , Val. I saw hundreds of people, and none of them noticed me. I was…invisible, but in a good way. I was just a person.”

“And that felt good?” Valentina says.

“It felt…” Juliana doesn’t have the words. “So I have super hearing, right?” Valentina nods, apparently onboard for the tangent. “And normally, I can hear everything. I mean _everything_. Heartbeats, breathing, you remember I could hear you crying from across the city?” Valentina flinches slightly at the mention of the day before—had it only been the day before?—but is still nodding along, listening. “I can hear—everything buzzes. All the electricity, it makes noise. All of it. The lights, computers, people’s phones, watches, medical devices, elevators, subways, power lines, phone lines, the electronics in cars. Everything. The whole city _buzzes_.”

“That sounds like it would drive me insane,” Valentina says. Juliana thinks about a time a few weeks prior, when she flew from the roof of the Carvajal Tower to the outer edge of the stratosphere so she could scream until her throat tickled with the ghost of a pain she can’t feel without anyone listening.

“It does, a little bit,” she admits. “When I first got here, I would have fits. I would hear and hear and hear and then just…break. Breath too fast and pass out.”

“Fits—“ Valentina leans closer to her unconsciously. “Juliana, that sounds like an anxiety attack.” Juliana pauses and considers that for a moment. She’s read about anxiety (she’s read about pretty much everything on Earth; it was all she did for six years) but she never thought about it in relation to herself. Now that she is, though…

“I don’t have them anymore,” Juliana says, filing it away to think more about later. “I’ve gotten good at shutting the noise out. But it’s still too loud sometimes. It doesn’t overwhelm me anymore, but it’s…not pleasant.” Valentina nods, her eyes filled with an emotion that Juliana almost rushes to label pity, before she realizes that it’s simply understanding. “But, in the park, and—I walked around the city, too, it’s—it’s loud enough that it’s quiet. Out there and…” Juliana taps her temple.

“Maybe I can go with you next time,” Valentina says. “It gets loud in here, too.” She touches her forehead.

“I was meaning to ask you about that, actually,” Juliana says. Her mouth is suddenly dry; her hands feel shaky. “I ate in a diner this morning in Martiantown, and the owner there wanted me to come back. She was very nice, and you mentioned wanting to do something normal sometime, so I was wondering if you wanted to get lunch with me? Tomorrow, maybe?” The words all come out in a rush, stumbling over one another, and Juliana takes a deep breath in once she gets them all out. She can hear her own heart rate, and it’s loud and fast in her ears. She’s asking a friend to lunch, she reminds herself. Nothing to be nervous about.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Valentina looks away, pushing her hair behind her ear.

“Oh,” Juliana says, immediately and unreasonably disappointed. “I—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—“

“No, it’s—“ Valentina sighs. “You said it’s in Martiantown?” Juliana nods. “Just…I’m Eva Carvajal’s little sister, Juls. Do you think I’d be welcome there?”

“The owner, she said everyone is welcome,” Juliana says. Valentina laughs, and it’s that bitter, cynical laughter again. It makes Juliana’s heart clench. She wants Valentina’s musical, lilting laugh back; she wants that snorting, uncontrolled giggling that feels like the greatest prize in the universe every time she can draw it out of Valentina. She wants happy sounds, good sounds. She doesn’t want Valentina to _hurt_.

“When people say that, they don’t mean _me_ ,” Valentina says. “Didn’t you have the sins of the father—or the sister—on Krypton? It’s tradition here to blame people for their family’s mistakes.”

“Val…”

“No, no, I’m sorry.” Valentina shakes her head and pushes her hair behind her ears. “I just—even if the owner—“

“Perlita.”

“Perlita, even if she meant it, if I was welcome, I would drive everyone else out. What alien would feel safe with a Carvajal in the room?” Valentina shrugs, the hint of a sad smile tugging at her lips. “It’s better without me there.”

“Valentina,” Juliana says firmly, reaching out and gently cupping Valentina’s face in her hands. “Everywhere you go, everything you do, is better because of you.” Valentina begins to laugh it off, averting her eyes and smiling sheepishly. “No, listen to me.” Juliana holds Valentina’s gaze. “People think you are your sister—that’s stupid, and that’s on them, but you don’t have to listen. You can prove them wrong, if you want. You’re not—you’re not poisonous.” Juliana finds herself wishing she was better with her words. She knows how to say what she wants to say in Kryptonian, but in Spanish, it comes out all wrong.

“Thank you,” Valentina says, seeming to pick up on Juliana’s meaning despite her fumbled words. She smiles gently at Juliana, pressing a palm to the back of one of Juliana’s hands. “But this diner—it’s in Martiantown, it’s…that’s their space, you know? This world isn’t good to them—to you. That’s _their_ home, _their_ safe place, and I don’t want to make it any less so by invading it, because I’m a Carvajal or because I’m human.” Juliana feels strange, hearing herself grouped with aliens, even offhandedly. The truth is, she doesn’t feel like one, doesn’t consider herself a part of the ramshackle community alien immigrants have built in this city and a dozen others across Earth. She hasn’t lived in a Martiantown, hasn’t struggled with discrimination for her appearance, her culture, her home world, hasn’t dealt with the pains of assimilation. All the things that unite aliens from across the galaxy on Earth don’t apply to her, so she hardly feels as though she has the right to call herself one of them.

The problem is, Juliana doesn’t feel human, either.

“Anyway,” Valentina says, changing the subject. Juliana allows her hands to drop back to her lap, ignoring the way they itch for the feeling of Valentina’s skin beneath her palms. “I couldn’t do tomorrow, anyway. Alirio’s—Alirio’s funeral is tomorrow.”

“So soon?” Mourning rites on Krypton took weeks before their equivalent of a human funeral—sending the fallen’s body in a space capsule to be with Rao. Juliana can’t imagine losing someone and putting their body in the ground the next day. How can anyone be expected to grieve so quickly?

“The company arranged for it,” Valentina says. “My assistant—she’s a blessing. She and Jacobo have been handling all the details.” She takes one of Juliana’s hands in a motion that’s become automatic for both of them, running her fingers over Juliana’s palm in an aimless pattern. “Guille is flying in for the funeral,” she says. “Oh! You could come to the funeral with me.” Juliana looks away.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Is that…okay here? For people to just…” She makes a vague motion with her hand. It would’ve been unheard of on Krypton for a stranger to attend the final sendoff off a body. Friends, family, anyone important to the dead, but a stranger? Never.

“It’s okay,” Valentina says. “Besides, I’d like to have you there. I, um…I might need someone to—to lean on.”

“Then of course,” Juliana says. “I’ll be there.” Valentina smiles.

“Good,” she says. “You can wear sunglasses the whole time, it’s outside. No one will recognize you.” Juliana hadn’t considered that, hadn’t thought about the conspicuity of _Supergirl_ attending the funeral of Valentina Carvajal’s driver.

“Are you sure that won’t be rude?” Juliana asks. Valentina shrugs.

“It’ll be fine,” she says. “Jacobo will probably wear sunglasses, too. He doesn’t like having people know when he’s sad.” She pauses, as though a thought is occurring to her. “You can meet Guille and his wife, she’s wonderful. Sergio can’t make it, though.”

“Sergio,” Juliana says, the name ringing a bell. “That’s your friend. The one that…that made the news a few years ago. Eva tried to kill him because he’s an alien.”

“Yes, that’s him.” Valentina looks away, her face pulling into a slight frown.

“I’m sorry,” Juliana says. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

“No, it’s alright,” Valentina says, shaking her head. “It’s just…Eva. I don’t…like to think about that.” Juliana says nothing, not sure what she _could_ say without making Valentina’s mood worse. “You know, she loved Sergio.” Valentina plays with Juliana’s fingers absently. “After my father died, I…didn’t cope well. You think I drink too much now, back then it was…I almost drowned in the pool once. I fell in when I was drunk.” Valentina is smiling, almost laughing at herself. Juliana’s chest aches for her, begs Juliana to do something to comfort her.

“Val…” Juliana squeezes her hand. “You don’t have to talk about this.”

“I want to.” Valentina looks up at her, meeting her gaze firmly. “I usually don’t, but…I want to tell you this stuff. I want to tell you everything.” Juliana’s face gets uncomfortably warm, and suddenly her whole body is on high alert. She’s aware of every molecule of air on her skin. Her hands tingle where they touch Valentina’s.

“Okay,” Juliana says, her voice sounding strange to her ears. “If you’re sure.”

“I am.” Valentina offers her a small smile before returning to her story. “Anyways, I was making some bad choices. Hanging out with the wrong people, getting drunk and high all the time, doing dangerous things. Eva hated all my friends—and she was right to. They weren’t good for me—not that I would’ve admitted it back then. Sergio stayed with me through all of it. He hung out with the people I was with so he could keep me safe. He did some pretty stupid things, too, but he was the one friend of mine that Eva actually approved of. She always liked him.” _And then she tried to kill him_. Juliana doesn’t say it out loud.

“How long have you known him?” she says instead.

“Forever.” Valentina shrugs. “Since we were three. I don’t remember my life without him in it. And then…Eva tried to take that from me.” Juliana scoots closer to Valentina, trying to offer some kind of unspoken comfort. “It was so stupid, you know?” Valentina shakes her head, flicking a strand of hair out of her face. “As soon as those bigots on the internet doxxed and outed Sergio, she turned on him. I just—I couldn’t _understand_ it. I still don’t. He was there for me through the hardest times of my life. I gave him every reason to turn his back on me and he never did. Where he was born, who his parents are, none of it changes who he is. And Eva thought—she thought she _protecting_ me. It just—“ Valentina cuts herself off, shaking her head emphatically. “It’s like my sister tried to kill my—my brother,” she says. “That’s what Sergio is, really.” She looks down. “As if there hadn’t been enough violence in my family.”

“I’m sorry,” Juliana says, and the words feel utterly, incredibly insignificant. She’s struck suddenly by the limits of her powers. She can outfly planes, take bullets, could probably move a planet if she tried, and there is absolutely _nothing she can do_ to ease Valentina’s pain.

“It’s in the past,” Valentina says, as if that does anything to make it easier.

“So is Krypton,” Juliana says. “But you never stop telling me you’re sorry about that.” Valentina smiles and looks down at their still-joined hands.

“Maybe we should both stop apologizing for each other’s pasts,” she says.

“That sounds like a good deal,” Juliana says. Valentina’s smile turns playful. She slips her hands out of Juliana’s and raises her right hand, extending her little finger and curling the rest into a fist.

“Promise?” she asks. Juliana looks blankly at her raised hand.

“I…promise,” she says, confused.

“No, pinky promise,” Valentina says, shaking her hand in the air between them. Juliana blinks at her. “You don’t know what this is?” Juliana shakes her head. Valentina reaches out, grabbing Juliana’s right hand and lifting it up. She gently pushes Juliana’s fingers into the same shape as her own, little finger out. “See, you lock your fingers like this,” she says, curling her finger around Juliana’s. Juliana mirrors the movement, still confused. “And that means you’ve made a promise. If the other person breaks it, you break their pinky.” She releases Juliana’s hand, and Juliana lowers it to her lap.

“I don’t want to break your finger,” she says. Apparently, it’s a funny thing to say, as it sets Valentina off into a fit of those amused, half-snorting giggles. Juliana revels in the sound, in the feeling of victory it brings her. _I did that. I made her laugh_. It’s the silliest thing to feel proud of, yet Juliana can’t imagine anything more worthy of her pride.

“Well, I won’t break the promise,” Valentina says when she’s regained her control, although her voice is still high-pitched and amused. “And you better not, either, or I’ll break your finger.” Juliana shakes her head, smiling.

“You don’t have to threaten me,” she says jokingly. Suddenly, though, her voice turns serious, heavy, almost solemn. “I would never break my promises to you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a few notes here: first of all, my portrayal of sergio. he'll probably pop up in person at some point, so i figure i might as well talk about this now. i might be wrong, since i've only watched the juliantina scenes and not the rest of the show, but it seems to me like sergio is treated as more of a plot device than a character. like, some of the stuff he does makes sense, and then he'll do something else that makes no sense at all for what his character has been established to be. it might be controversial in this fandom, since it seems like y'all don't like him very much, but i'm actually a fan of what it seemed like they were going for with his character - a sweet if kinda dumb guy with his heart in the right place - when he wasn't being used to generate drama/further juliana and valentina's storylines. so he's going to be portrayed fairly positively in this fic and probably in any future fics i write for these two. he's also not super important or a major character in this fic, so even if you're not a fan, hopefully it's not a dealbreaker for you.
> 
> second, i'm sorry if this chapter got boring ajksdhgsalkjd. it's super dialogue heavy and i know that can get annoying. i can't help it; every time i put these two in a room together the conversations practically write themselves. next chapter might have more action depending on what ends up in that chapter versus what ends up in the hypothetical chapter four. either way, i can promise some real action before this fic ends :)
> 
> idk when chapter three is coming but hopefully it won't be too long. i'm on tumblr @daisys-quake and on twitter @thoughtsintoink; feel free to follow/message me on either one; i'm always open to a good conversation :) please leave a comment and kudos if you enjoyed! it's seriously so motivating and it might bring you chapter three a little faster ;)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eyyy i'm back. thanks for all your lovely comments guys, means a lot <3\. hope you like this chapter. i think i've stumbled across an actual plotline sajdghskald so that might help this get somewhere other than existential angst and quiet lesbianism. enjoy.

The funeral is long.

Mourning on Krypton had taken weeks, but the final ceremony, the actual release of the deceased to Rao, was always brief, only twenty minutes or so. The funeral goes on for over two hours, with speech after speech given by religious leaders that Juliana can’t remember the titles of, friends of Alirio, his wife, his son. Everyone is crying by the end, including Valentina, who holds Juliana’s hand tightly and cries silently, without moving.

Juliana doesn’t understand it at all. It’s as though they’re all trying to get their grief out in a few intense hours, rather than the months of slow mourning and acceptance that had been the tradition on Krypton. No wonder they’re all crying. Trying to feel so much must be exhausting.

Juliana and Valentina sit in the second row, behind Alirio’s wife, children, grandson, and extended family. Valentina holds Juliana’s hand the entire time, at times gently, at times clutching so tightly it feels like she’s trying to hold onto reality through Juliana’s fingers. Juliana doesn’t mind. The tightness can’t hurt her, and Valentina needs to hold onto something.

After, each person present walks past the casket. It’s closed, of course. It would do no one any good to see what the car bomb did to the man they all loved. Each person touches the lid as they pass. Some of them speak, saying goodbye. Some of them are silent, still, faces frozen like they’re carved out of plastic. Some cry.

Juliana stands off to the side as she waits for Valentina. It’s not her place to say goodbye to Alirio. Her sunglasses are still on, and luckily, it’s a brilliantly sunny day. She doesn’t really stick out that much at all.

“You haven’t listened to me.” Juliana turns in the direction of the voice. Jacobo is standing there. He’s wearing sunglasses, too, and Juliana remembers what Valentina said, about how Jacobo doesn’t like people to know when he’s sad.

“What do you mean?” Juliana says. Jacobo reaches up and takes off his sunglasses. His eyes are red, a bit swollen. He’s been crying.

“I told you to stay away from Valentina.” Juliana remembers the conversation on the roof a few weeks ago, remembers Jacobo’s harsh, clipped tone and pointed words. She looks over at Valentina, who is standing in line to go up to the casket. She notices Juliana’s gaze and smiles weakly at her. Juliana returns the smile and turns back to Jacobo.

“You’re right,” Juliana says. “I haven’t listened.”

“Don’t.” Jacobo slips his sunglasses inside his suit jacket.

“What?”

“Don’t listen to me.” He glances over at Valentina as well, but she doesn’t look up this time. “I told you to stay away because I wanted to keep her safe. But…” He sighs. “I don’t like to admit it when I’m wrong, but I was wrong.”

“Why do you say that?” Juliana says, unable to resist. “You weren’t wrong. I have a lot of enemies. I put her in danger.”

“No more danger than she’s always in.” Jacobo slips his hands into his pockets. “No more enemies than she already has, by both her father and her sister. I didn’t trust you. That’s why I said what I said.”

“And you trust me now?”

“No.” Juliana starts slightly at the unhesitating answer. Jacobo almost smiles at her reaction. “I don’t trust anyone, that’s why I’m good at my job. But Valentina trusts you, and…you’re good for her. I’ve seen her laugh more these past few weeks than I have since León died. And you’re _here_.” He gestures around the funeral. “That means something.”

“Val needed me here,” Juliana says with a shrug. “So I’m here.” This time, Jacobo does smile, though it’s small.

“That _means_ something,” he says again. “Besides, who better to help me protect her than Supergirl?”

“Help _you_ protect her?” Juliana raises her eyebrows. “Maybe _you’re_ helping _me_.” Jacobo’s smile widens, and he looks back over at Valentina.

“Don’t push it.” Valentina steps up to the casket, setting her hand on top of it, and Juliana is already counting down the seconds until Valentina returns to her. “The point is, I take back what I said. She needs you.” Juliana looks at Jacobo, whose smile is gone. His gaze is intense as he speaks his next words. “Don’t let her down, Supergirl.”

“My name is Juliana.” Juliana returns the stare unflinchingly. “And I won’t. I promise you, I won’t let her down.” Jacobo nods slowly, and some sort of understanding passes between them. Jacobo pulls his sunglasses back out of his jacket and slips them back on, nodding once at Juliana before going to get in line at the casket.

“Hey,” Valentina says as she approaches. “What were you and Jacobo talking about?” Juliana smiles, as teasingly as she imagines is acceptable at a funeral.

“You,” she says. Valentina smiles slightly.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Vale.” The voice interrupting them is unfamiliar to Juliana, coming from a few feet off to their left. They both turn. An expensively dressed, bearded man is standing there, his hand tightly wrapped around the hand of the woman beside him.

“Guille!” _So this is the brother_ , Juliana thinks as Valentina shoots forward, throwing her arms around the man so quickly that he stumbles back a half-step.

“Vale,” Guillermo Carvajal says again as he releases the hand of the woman beside him and wraps his arms around his sister. They stand there, wrapped around each other, for long enough that Juliana begins to feel awkward standing there, watching, hidden behind her sunglasses. The woman—Guillermo’s wife, Juliana assumes—smiles politely at her, and Juliana does her best to return it.

“I missed you,” Valentina says as she finally steps back. Guillermo smiles at her.

“I missed you, too,” he says. “I’m sorry we’re late. The flight was delayed.” He looks over Valentina’s shoulder, seeming to finally notice Juliana standing there. “Aren’t you going to introduce your friend?”

“This is Juliana,” Valentina says. “But we can do all that later. You should…” She gestures toward the casket, and Guillermo’s demeanor shifts as he turns to face the funeral proceedings.

“Say goodbye,” he completes. “Yes. I should.” His wife steps up beside him, linking their hands once again. Guillermo squares his shoulders, and together, he and his wife join the line leading to the casket.

“So that is your brother,” Juliana says, turning back to Valentina.

“Yes,” Valentina says. “I promise, you’ll like him.”

“Shouldn’t you be worried about whether or not he’ll like me?” Juliana says.

“No.” Valentina shrugs. “How could he not?” Juliana can’t formulate a proper response to that, but luckily, she doesn’t have to. “Listen, you can say no if you want to, but Guille and Renata and I are having lunch after the funeral, and I was…I was wondering if you might like to come.” Juliana feels something warm filling up her chest, and she looks down at her feet, smiling softly to herself. She wishes she could take off her sunglasses and see clearly. She imagines Valentina’s eyes are brilliant in the sunlight.

“Is that a good idea?” Juliana asks. “I can’t wear my sunglasses indoors.”

“Actually, I got you a present to help with that,” Valentina says. Juliana looks back up at her curiously, noting the amused half-smile on her face, like Valentina is laughing at a private joke. “You don’t have to worry about them recognizing you.” Seeing Juliana’s curious look, Valentina waves a hand dismissively. “I’ll give it to you in the car. It’s a surprise.”

“Okay,” Juliana says, smiling despite herself. “And what about when they ask how we met? Or where I’m from?”

“It’s lunch, not an interrogation.” Valentina gives Juliana a pleading look, reaching out and tangling their hands together. She bounces up and down slightly. “Please? It would mean a lot to me if you were there. I want you to get to know my family.”

“Val…”

“Please?” Valentina is smiling hopefully, and Juliana doesn’t think she could bear to be the one to take that smile off her face.

“Okay.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.” Valentina makes an excited noise, squeezing Juliana’s hands. She steps forward, and suddenly they’re hugging, Valentina’s arms wrapped tightly around Juliana’s shoulders. Juliana has to hide her smile in Valentina’s hair, irrepressibly happy but knowing that the joy on her face is inappropriate for a funeral.

“Thank you,” Valentina says as she steps back, hands flitting about and fixing Juliana’s hair. They produce little shivers everywhere they touch, sending sparks of happiness across Juliana’s skin. “You’ll have fun, I promise.” She seems like she’s about to say more, but Guillermo and Renata are returning, and Valentina and Juliana both turn to face them. Guillermo looks upset. Renata is holding onto his arm, darting concerned glances at him.

“We should go,” Guillermo says without preamble as soon as he reaches Juliana and Valentina. “I don’t want to…” Juliana isn’t sure where the sentence is going, what Guillermo is talking about, but Valentina seems to understand him perfectly.

“We should,” she says. “Jacobo is waiting in the car for Juliana and I, do you need a ride?” Guillermo and Renata exchange a look.

“Yes, thank you,” Renata says. Valentina nods, and silently, the four of them make their way out of the cemetery towards the parking lot. Valentina links her arm through Juliana’s, keeping them close together.

“So how do you plan to give me my surprise now?” Juliana murmurs, taking advantage of their proximity.

“Sneakily,” Valentina whispers back. Juliana snorts in a rather undignified manner, making Valentina smile.

When they get to the van, Jacobo gets out, greeting both Guillermo and Renata with hugs and quiet, polite small talk. Juliana watches the interaction curiously, noting the lack of intimacy behind it. The bond that Jacobo and Valentina so clearly share is missing between Jacobo and Guillermo, and by extension Renata. He’s clearly happy to see them both, but he doesn’t seem to _know_ them the way he knows Valentina.

Juliana wonders how much of that closeness came from Guillermo leaving. In the wake of Eva’s conviction, Valentina had taken over one of the biggest corporations on the planet at twenty-four, and Guillermo had…from what Juliana understands, he had moved to Canada with his wife and never returned. Valentina had surely needed someone to lean on, and Jacobo had been betrayed and subsequently abandoned, as well.

She could be reading into it all too much. Juliana decides to reserve judgment, to forget what she’d read in the news about Guillermo during Eva’s trial and the months of chaos that followed it. Valentina wants Juliana to like her brother, so Juliana will try.

“Here,” Valentina murmurs to Juliana, jolting her out of her thoughts. They're in the farthest back seats of the van, with Guillermo and Renata in the row in front of them and Jacobo driving. The three in front are caught up in conversation at the moment, and Valentina seems to be taking advantage of their distraction to give Juliana her surprise.

“Okay…” Juliana whispers back, smiling curiously. Valentina is holding out a small box of some sort, made of unmarked plastic and hinged. Juliana takes it and settles it in her lap, looking up at Valentina. Valentina is grinning, mischief sparkling in her eyes.

“So?” Valentina says, gesturing at the box. “Go on, open it.” With one last suspicious glance at Valentina, Juliana fits her thumbnail into the groove on the side of the box and pops it open.

Inside, on a bed of soft fabric, rests a pair of nondescript but expensive-looking glasses.

“ _Val_.” Juliana looks back up at her, unable to hold back a fond smile.

“Do you like them?” Valentina asks, her voice still low, likely inaudible to Guillermo and Renata in the seats ahead of them, if they were listening. Juliana shakes her head fondly, still grinning, and lifts the glasses out of the case, turning them over in her hands but carefully keeping her fingers off the lenses. They’re nice—Juliana knows nothing about glasses, but she knows something about what wealth looks like, and she imagines these were expensive.

“You spoil me,” she says to Valentina.

“I spoil—Juliana, I’ve bought you one thing,” Valentina says, rolling her eyes. “You can’t call that spoiling.” Juliana shoots a surreptitious glance at the rest of the passengers in the van, making sure none of them are paying attention. Taking advantage of her inhuman speed, she whips off her sunglasses and puts the new glasses on. They’re clear—just simple panes of glass, not meant to focus one’s vision.

“So?” Juliana whispers. “How do I look?” Valentina reaches out, tucking Juliana’s hair behind her ears.

“Beautiful,” Valentina says, and Juliana doesn’t need her super hearing to detect the sincerity and affection in her tone.

“Not like Supergirl?” Juliana says. Valentina shakes her head.

“Not like Supergirl,” she says, tapping Juliana’s collarbone through her shirt with the tip of an index finger. “Like you.” Juliana’s brain short-circuits a little bit. She opens her mouth to reply, but can’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t be too much, too obvious, too _romantic_.

“Hey, Valentina,” Guillermo says, twisting around in his seat to face them, and Juliana silently thanks Rao for the interruption. She’s trying to control herself, to keep her feelings inside where they belong, but every time Valentina looks at her, touches her, laughs at her jokes, it gets harder. “You said you’d introduce us, no?”

“I did,” Valentina says. “Guille, this is Juliana, my best friend. Juliana, this is my brother, Guillermo, and his wife, Renata.” _Her best friend?_

“Pleased to meet you,” Guillermo says, smiling warmly, and Juliana echoes it, trying to regain her control of herself. “So, how did you meet my sister?” Juliana looks over at Valentina, raising her eyebrows. _It’s lunch, not an interrogation_. So much for that. They’re not even _at_ lunch yet, wherever they’re going, and they’re already being asked questions they can’t answer.

“In a park,” Valentina says. She doesn’t clarify beyond that, and Guillermo gives her an odd look, but doesn’t question the vague answer.

“And what do you do?” Renata asks Juliana politely, shifting in her seat as well to join the conversation.

“I work in…security.” Juliana says the first thing that comes to mind.

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, she does,” Valentina says, jumping back in. “High-profile clients, she’s not really allowed to talk about it very much.”

“Sounds exciting,” Guillermo says.

“It…it is,” Juliana says, suddenly wishing she was a better liar. “I’m never bored.” She wouldn’t have known it herself two months ago, but it’s a lie. She was so _bored_ up there, flying around and waiting for the world to end so she could save it. Bored and purposeless, and she had woken up feeling empty every morning of her life.

(Now she wakes up and thinks of Valentina, and she feels everything under the sun but boredom.)

“I’m sorry, where exactly are we going for lunch?” Juliana asks, suddenly realizing they’re on a highway, on their way out of the city.

“Valentina didn’t tell you?” Guillermo says, glancing at his sister. “We’re going to the mansion.”

“The…mansion,” Juliana repeats. She looks askance at Valentina.

“The Carvajal estate,” Valentina says. “Where we grew up.”

* * *

“What do you think?” Juliana gazes up at the gigantic house in front of her and suddenly wishes Valentina was holding her hand, instead of gazing at her expectantly and waiting for an answer. Juliana doesn’t reach out for her, though; she doesn’t want to be needy.

“It’s…” Juliana clears her throat, searching for a word without a negative connotation. _Intimidating. Foreboding. Cold. Inhuman_. “Large.” Guillermo, who is standing a few feet away, snorts. It’s not derisive, not scornful, just amused, but Juliana feels like she’s done something wrong anyway. Her family had never been rich—back on Krypton, in school, Juliana regularly got bullied for her clothes, her hair, her pitiful lunch allowance. This, however, is the first time she’s felt her class so painfully on Earth.

She still doesn’t like the feeling.

“You think that now, wait until you see the inside,” Valentina says, not picking up in the discomfort in Juliana’s tone. She reaches out, grabbing Juliana’s hand and leading her towards the mansion. Juliana follows, focusing on the warmth between their palms, rather than the growing trepidation in the pit of her stomach.

Valentina leads them into the entryway, with Guillermo and Renata trailing behind. Juliana turns in a slow circle, her hand slipping out of Valentina’s, as she takes it all in. The foyer is massive, high-ceilinged, well lit, and Juliana feels…small. Washed out and faint.

This is Valentina’s home, her world, and Juliana doesn’t belong.

“Come on, come on,” Valentina is saying, grabbing Juliana’s hand again and leading her down a hallway that splits off of the foyer. “I want to show you my room.” Juliana follows, her hand in Valentina’s. She takes in the house as they walk through—minimalist decor, LED lights, white and grey color scheme. It’s as cold on the inside as it looked on the outside. A palace without life, without love.

Valentina pulls Juliana through a door, and suddenly they’re in her room. This— _this_ , Juliana feels at home in. It’s artfully decorated, yet messy, with a window seat covered in pillows and eclectic quilts, posters and photos on the walls. It seems as though all the life lacking from Valentina’s apartment in the city is here, concentrated in this one (surprisingly small) room.

“So?” Valentina says, gesturing around the room. “What do you think?”

“I like your room,” Juliana says honestly. “You have good taste.” She glances down and runs her hand along the blanket on the bed for good measure. She finds it impossibly soft.

“Thank you,” Valentina says. “And the rest of the house?” Juliana lifts her hand and her head, meeting Valentina’s gaze.

“It’s beautiful,” she says softly. “But it seems like a cold place to grow up in.” Valentina looks away, a wistful look flashing across her face.

“It is now,” she agrees. “When my parents were alive, the house was alive. There was never a moment I felt lonely. But then my mother died, and then my father, and then Eva…” She crosses her arms like she’s trying to hold herself, and Juliana wants nothing more in this world or any other than to step forward and take their place, to hold Valentina herself. She doesn’t move. “After Guillermo left, I just…I couldn’t stay anymore. I could’ve commuted into the city every day to run the company, but I didn’t want to be here. Like you said, it’s cold, now. Empty. I couldn’t live here alone. So I told everyone I was moving to be closer to work and I just…left.”

“I’m sorry,” Juliana says, feeling utterly inadequate. Valentina shakes her head and smiles, and Juliana remembers an earlier promise. _No more apologizing for the past_. She can’t help it. It seems like a crime on some greater, universal level that Valentina has ever had to suffer.

“Anyway!” Valentina says. “We should change before lunch. No reason to wear funeral clothes all day and make lunch depressing.” Valentina steps over to the closet, pushing the sliding door open, and starts sorting through her clothes. Juliana stands there, uncomfortably shifting from foot to foot.

“I…don’t have anything else,” Juliana says after a moment. Valentina, thoroughly engrossed in her clothes, waves a hand dismissively without looking back at Juliana.

“Don’t be silly,” she says. “You’ll borrow something.” Juliana blinks in confusion at Valentina’s back. That wasn’t something that had been done on Krypton. Juliana has seen it happen on TV here on Earth, but it seems nearly universally like a romantic gesture—something done between couples, not friends.

Juliana must be wrong. Valentina seems completely casual; the offer doesn’t seem to be a big deal. So Juliana must be wrong; this must be something friends do. It’s not as though Valentina means it as a romantic gesture.

(That’s not possible.)

“What do you want?” Valentina asks, pulling a shirt out of the closet and setting it aside for herself.

“I don’t know,” Juliana says. “What would be normal for something like this?”

“Normal for eating lunch at your friend’s house?” Valentina says, amused. “Anything, really.” She turns and looks at Juliana expectantly, waiting for an answer.

“Normal for eating lunch at your CEO friend’s _mansion_ ,” Juliana says. Valentina frowns.

“You’re uncomfortable with this,” she realizes. “Juls, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you—“

“No, Val—“ Juliana sighs heavily. “I’m not—you didn’t make me uncomfortable. I’m never uncomfortable with you.” She shrugs, offering Valentina a small smile. “I just—I didn’t grow up around wealth, you know? I slept on a couch most of my life. I’m not used to…all this.” She gestures around the room, indicating the house, the servants, the expansive grounds, the opulence that Valentina grew up in. Valentina looks at her appraisingly, and that butterfly-under-a-microscope feeling comes back, making Juliana’s stomach twist unpleasantly.

“We’re from different worlds,” Valentina says softly after a moment. “In more ways than one, I guess.” Juliana nods, looking down at her feet. “Well, I promise you, you can wear whatever you want.” Valentina smiles at Juliana. “And no one is going to make you feel out of place. You belong here, with me.” Juliana can feel her face heating up. Valentina doesn’t mean it like that, doesn’t mean _with her_ the way Juliana is starting to wish she did, but the words affect her anyway, making her hands tremble.

“Besides, you’re not alone,” Valentina says, turning back to her closet. “Renata doesn’t come from money, either.”

“She doesn’t?” Juliana says, finally stepping up beside Valentina and looking at her clothes, as well. “But she seems so…”

“Glamorous?” Valentina says. Juliana nods, laughing a bit at herself. Renata had seemed so poised, well-dressed, and confident at the funeral—she had fit right in. “She’s been living in this world for a long time, because of Guille. She’s used to it.” She smiles at Juliana. “You’ll get used to it, too.” _That_ doesn’t help the way Juliana’s hands are trembling—Valentina speaking about herself and Juliana in the same breath as Guillermo and Renata.

Juliana really needs to get herself under control.

“How about this one?” Valentina is holding up a shirt, a nice, soft-looking green piece. Juliana has no particular feelings about it one way or another, but then, she doesn’t really have any feelings about any Earth fashion. Her wardrobe, outside of her combat suits and the clothes she had bought for the funeral, consists entirely of monochrome t-shirts, mid-blue jeans, and two jackets.

“Sure,” Juliana says, taking the shirt.

“And these?” Valentina hands her a pair of jeans, which Juliana accepts with the same noncommittal neutrality as she had the shirt.

“Where’s your bathroom?” Juliana asks. “I can change in—“

“Don’t be silly,” Valentina says, already pulling off her own jacket. “You can just change in here.” Juliana hesitates. “I’ll turn around, if you want,” Valentina says, picking up on Juliana’s discomfort.

“No, I—it’s okay.” Uncertainly, Juliana pulls her jacket off, folding it carefully and setting it aside. She starts unbuttoning her shirt. It feels strange, taking her clothes off in front of Valentina—in front of anyone, but especially Valentina. Valentina isn’t really paying any attention, busy shedding her own clothes, and Juliana is keeping her eyes to herself as well, but still. The moment is charged, the air in the room is tense—maybe just in Juliana’s head, but tense all the same.

Juliana’s hands tremble, and she fumbles with the last few buttons on her shirt. She curses in Kryptonian under her breath and tugs at the buttons futilely. Her frustration catches Valentina’s attention, and Valentina turns to look at her.

“Here,” Valentina says, stepping over to her. “Let me.” Valentina is shirtless, wearing only her bra, and Juliana very carefully keeps her eyes fixed on the wall over Valentina’s shoulder as Valentina quickly unbuttons her shirt.

“There you go,” Valentina says, stepping back and turning away. Suddenly Juliana can breathe properly again, without Valentina in such intense proximity. “What was that thing you said?”

“What?” Juliana tugs her shirt down her arms, folding it as well and setting it on top of her jacket.

“You said something, in your language,” Valentina says. “Krypton…Kryptonese?” Juliana colors slightly.

“Kryptonian,” she corrects. “It was…um, I was swearing.” Valentina starts to laugh and turns around to face Juliana again. When her gaze falls on Juliana, though, her laughter peters off.

“What?” Juliana says, half-tempted to cross her arms across her stomach, to cover the strip of skin that shows between the top of her pants and the bottom of her bra.

“You have…” Valentina gestures at her. “You have a scar.” Juliana’s hand flies to her collarbone instinctively, touching the long, thin scar that runs at an angle across the right side of her chest and up onto her collarbone.

“Yes,” she says. “I do.”

“I don’t understand,” Valentina says. “You’re bulletproof, but you have a scar?”

“I wasn’t always bulletproof,” Juliana says. Valentina stares at her in confusion. “My powers, they’re not—I didn’t have them on Krypton. They’re from the sun. The light of the yellow sun gives them to me. The sun on Krypton was red, so we didn’t have any more power there than humans do here.”

“That’s—“ Valentina shakes her head. “Scientifically, that’s—“

“Believe me, I know.” Juliana, with the Kryptonian equivalent of a high school education, knows more about science than any human ever will, and she doesn’t understand it, either. Valentina doesn’t seem satisfied by the answer, but she lets it go. She gazes at the scar a moment longer, than raises her hand hesitantly between them.

“Can I…” She gestures at the scar. With a lump in her throat, Juliana nods permission.

The feeling of Valentina’s fingers on her skin is one that Juliana immediately knows she never wants to forget. Valentina traces the mark, feeling the way it’s slightly raised from the skin around it. She runs her fingertips along the length of it, six inches or so, back and forth a few times.

“How did you get it?” Valentina asks, her fingers still on Juliana’s skin, her gaze still fixed on the scar. Juliana flinches.

(The apartment is small, and there’s nowhere to hide; Chino has been throwing things, bottles, shouting for what feels like hours— _whose kid is she is she even my daughter who did you fuck Lupe she’s not my daughter she’s not my daughter she’s not my daughter she’s not my_ —)

“Don’t tell me,” Valentina says, seeing the fear and pain in Juliana’s face. Her hand flattens out on Juliana’s shoulder, gripping it comfortingly. “Don’t worry about it.” Valentina leans in and presses a kiss to Juliana’s cheek. She smiles lightly at Juliana as she pulls away before pulling the shirt she had picked out for herself over her head.

“My father—“ Juliana begins, her mouth dry, her voice robotic.

“Hey.” Valentina steps closer to her, and despite the fact that she’s fully clothed again, Juliana loses the ability to speak with her so close. Valentina reaches up and presses her finger to Juliana’s lips in a shushing motion. “Do you want to tell me this, or do you feel like you have to?”

“I want—“ Valentina lifts her finger, allowing Juliana to speak. “I want you to know me.”

“I do know you.” Valentina smiles at her. “You don’t have to relive every bad thing that’s happened to you for that.”

“And if I want to?” Valentina’s gaze flicks back and forth between Juliana’s eyes, like she’s searching for something. “If I want to—“ Juliana shakes her head. “I want you to know everything about me,” she says, a desperate note creeping into her voice. “I want to—I want to—“

“Juls.” Valentina lifts Juliana’s chin with the side of her index finger. “Anything you want to tell me, I’ll listen to. You—everything you’ve been through—it’s all safe with me.” She leans in and kisses Juliana’s forehead. She lingers for a long moment, and Juliana closes her eyes, memorizing the feeling of Valentina’s lips on her skin, savoring the closeness of their bodies.

“I love you,” Valentina says as she pulls away, and Juliana’s heart leaps into her throat. Valentina smiles bashfully, looking away. “I know we—haven’t known each other very long, but I feel like you know me better than anyone ever has. I feel like—like we were meant to be friends, you know? Like it’s—“

“Fate,” Juliana says.

“Yeah,” Valentina says, looking at Juliana with that piercing, examining gaze. “Yeah, like fate.”

“I love you, too,” Juliana says, and means it the way Valentina meant it—platonically, with the will of the universe behind it. Valentina smiles in response, and Juliana—

—Juliana _aches_.

* * *

“So?” Valentina says. They’re sitting by the pool—because of _course_ Valentina has a pool. Guillermo and Renata had excused themselves after lunch, retreating to Guillermo’s old room to rest. Juliana’s glasses sit on the table beside her, folded back into their case. “What do you think?”

“Of your brother?” Julian shrugs. “I like him. You two have a lot of stories.” Much of lunch had been taken up by Guillermo and Valentina regaling Juliana and Renata with stories of their idyllic childhood and wild adolescent years, and all the trouble they had gotten into and escaped together.

“We do,” Valentina says, smiling to herself. She stares at the pool, seemingly a bit lost in thought. Juliana watches the way the reflected light plays over her face.

“Can I ask you something?” Juliana says. Valentina looks up at her, and the light falls across her eyes. Juliana nearly loses all semblance of self-control right then and there, nearly leans across the gap between their chairs and kisses Valentina, because her eyes are sparkling in the blue-tinted sunlight and Juliana has never met anyone so beautiful.

“Of course,” Valentina says, and Juliana pushes the urge to kiss her down into a box inside her chest. Valentina isn’t gay, isn’t into her, and—at the end of the day, as human-passing as she is, Juliana is an alien. That’s—Valentina is the best person Juliana has ever met, but she can’t imagine Valentina would ever be okay with that.

“After Eva went to prison, and Guillermo left,” Juliana says, ignoring the way her heart twists in on itself and begs her to reach out for Valentina. “He—he sort of abandoned you, didn’t he? Aren’t you upset about that?” Valentina looks away. The light shifts off her eyes, but the feeling in Juliana’s chest doesn’t fade, and she’s not sure it’s ever going to.

“It wasn’t like that,” Valentina says. She looks down at her hands, twisting her fingers together absently.

“No?” Juliana says, as gently as her voice can manage. She wishes she could be softer, all of a sudden. She wishes her voice was kinder, as kind as Valentina deserves.

“No.” Valentina unwinds her fingers and props her chin on her elbows, looking out past the pool and into the grounds beyond. “It wasn’t about me. He needed to—to go learn how to be okay, you know? He needed to be by himself for awhile, to figure out…what he was supposed to _do_.”

“But you needed him,” Juliana says. Valentina shakes her head, looking back over at Juliana.

“I needed Eva,” she says, her voice trembling just a bit. “Or my father. Or my mother. I needed someone to tell me what to do, and that’s never been Guille’s job. The support I needed, he never would’ve been able to give me.”

“And who did?” Juliana says. “Who told you what to do?”

“My therapist.” Despite herself, Juliana snorts with amusement at Valentina’s deadpan tone, covering her mouth with one hand to hide her smile.

“I’m sorry,” she says, shaking her head. “That was—“

“It was supposed to be funny,” Valentina says, smiling as well. “You can laugh.”

“And now?” Juliana says when her laughter has faded. “Do you need Guillermo now?”

“Now?” Valentina seems almost perplexed by the question. She thinks about it for a moment. “Now, I don’t know. I’m happy that he’s back. I missed him. But…I don’t know, if I need him anymore.”

“You don’t sound very happy with that,” Juliana says, noting the vaguely bitter, resigned note to Valentina’s voice.

“Honestly, Juls, I don’t think I was very happy until I met you.” The boxes Juliana is trying to build in her chest come apart, and she gives up on fighting the tide of emotion that sweeps through her.

(There is absolutely nothing she can do to stop the way she feels about Valentina.)

“Don’t say that,” Juliana says. “It isn’t really about me.”

“No, it is!” Valentina insists. “I mean, it—it is and it isn’t. You make me happy, when we hang out and when I think about you. But it’s more than that.” Valentina turns in her chair, shifting to face Juliana. Juliana forces herself to meet Valentina’s gaze, though it makes her heart pound in her chest. She’s glad Valentina doesn’t have Juliana’s powers, glad she can’t hear Juliana’s heart racing.

“It’s like…” Valentina pauses, searching for the right words. “You teach me things, you know? About how to be happy with just me. It’s like, what am I complaining about? I still have a brother, I still have a planet.”

“So it’s what happened to Krypton,” Juliana says, her voice distant. “It’s a lesson?”

“No.” Valentina takes a deep, frustrated breath. “I’m not saying this right. It’s—you told me about the park, remember?” Juliana nods uncertainly. “And—you liked the park so much because you were just a person there. Nothing was too loud, you didn’t worry about saving the world. You just got to be a person. And that’s what you’re teaching me. That’s what I’m trying to learn, why I’m happier now. I can just be a person. I can just be _Valentina_. Not Eva Carvajal’s sister, not León Carvajal’s daughter, not a CEO or an activist or—or any of it. I can just be Valentina, and that’s enough for you, right?”

“Of course,” Juliana says, shaking her head. “That’s all I want you to be.”

“Exactly,” Valentina says, smiling. “So I’m learning to make that enough for me, too. So, you see, you make me happy, and you’re teaching me how to be happy. And it’s only now that I know you that I know how unhappy I was.”

“I don’t know how I taught you that,” Juliana says, looking away. “I don’t think I’ve learned it yet.”

“You’re not happy?” Valentina says. It’s phrased as a question, but Juliana can tell that Valentina isn’t surprised at the admission. Juliana wears her heart on her sleeve, and always has. Anyone would know she wasn’t happy if they looked for it.

It’s just that, until Valentina, no one has bothered to look.

“I don’t know,” Juliana says, staring into the pool. She doesn’t remember what happy feels like. She doesn’t remember a time when when smiling didn’t spark guilt in her chest. “I don’t think so.” Valentina hums softly in acknowledgement, and they sit in a comfortable silence for awhile. Juliana takes the opportunity to listen to the sounds of the city in the distance, searching for sirens, shouts, anything that might indicate that her presence is needed. There’s the usual chaos—horns honking, traffic jams, minor car accidents that damage nothing but bumpers and paint jobs—but nothing that calls for Juliana’s attention. It seems as though the world has decided to give her the day off.

“Juls?” Valentina says, pulling Juliana back into the moment. “Do you want to go swimming?” Juliana looks over at her, smiling a bit at the question.

“Swimming?” she says. Valentina gestures at the pool.

“Swimming. You can borrow a suit.”

“Val,” Juliana says. She looks away, smiling despite the vague embarrassment she feels. “I can’t swim.”

“You can’t swim?” Valentina shakes her head. “You can fly but you can’t swim?”

“Flying is easy!” Juliana protests. “I didn’t have to learn, I can just do it. I never learned how to swim.”

“You didn’t—never?” Valentina says incredulously.

“No.” Juliana shrugs. “It wasn’t—water was precious on Krypton. If it was clean enough to swim in, it had to be saved for drinking. Not even the wealthiest aristocrats were allowed something that frivolous. Some military recruits were allowed to, if they were going to a planet where they might need it, but other than that, no one could.”

“Was the whole planet a desert?” Valentina says, frowning. “I’m sorry, I just can’t imagine a world where water couldn’t be spared for a pool.”

“No—well, sort of,” Juliana says. “Everything was polluted, and the climate was harsh. The oceans and lakes were too acidic to swim in. They didn’t used to be, but by the time I was born, there was so much pollution that clean water had to be shipped in from other planets in bad years.”

“That sounds depressing,” Valentina says, then flushes with embarrassment and covers her mouth. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay,” Juliana says. “It was, sometimes. Krypton was beautiful, and there’s a lot about it worth remembering. But how we treated our planet…” She shakes her head. “Well, it came back to haunt us, in the end.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No apologizing, remember?” Juliana stands, stepping up to the edge of the pool and looking down. The water is blue-tinged but clear. She can see straight to the bottom of the pool.

“I remember,” Valentina says from behind her. “Hey, Juls? You don’t have your phone on you, do you?” Juliana glances back at her, but Valentina’s face is giving nothing away.

“I don’t have a phone,” Juliana says, turning back to the pool. “Why?”

“Oh, no reason,” Valentina says. Juliana hears her heartbeat spike—she’s lying. She hears Valentina stand and take a few steps forward, standing behind her. Juliana begins to turn, but before she’s halfway around, Valentina is moving.

Valentina wraps her arms around Juliana’s waist and throws them both off the edge, out over the pool.

Juliana nearly catches herself with her flight, nearly stops, hovering on her back, a few inches above the pool. But, as she’s about to stop herself in midair, she decides not to. They’re in the shallow end of the pool; she’ll be able to stand on the bottom and keep most of her upper body above the water. Besides, Valentina is having fun. She’s already laughing in Juliana’s ear, and Juliana refuses to do anything that might make that sound disappear.

They crash into the pool together, fully clothed. Juliana feels it like it’s happening in slow motion: the water curving beneath them, reaching into the air, Valentina’s arms around her waist and weight on her chest. Then they’re underwater. Valentina’s eyes are closed against the chlorinated water, but Juliana keeps hers open—they can’t hurt, anyway—and watches the way Valentina’s hair billows out in the water.

(Juliana isn’t in love with her; they haven’t known each other nearly long enough for that. But, underwater, with her hearing dulled and Valentina in her arms, Juliana feels more human than she ever has before.)

The world seems to speed up again, and they right themselves, feet finding the bottom of the pool. As soon as they break the surface, Valentina takes a deep breath and begins to laugh.

“You’re the _worst_ ,” Juliana says, though she’s smiling, too. She half-heartedly pushes some water at Valentina, splashing her. Valentina splashes her twice as hard, still laughing.

“You don’t want to start that with me,” she says. “You can’t beat me in a water fight.”

“Can’t I?” Juliana uses both hands this time, sending a bigger wave. This one gets Valentina in the face, and she splutters, stumbling back a slow step.

“Oh, that’s _it_ —“

“You two having fun?” The voice comes from the far end of the pool. They both turn to look. Guillermo is standing at the edge of the pool, grinning at them. He’s barefoot, in shorts and a t-shirt.

“We are,” Valentina says, grinning at him. “You should join us.” Guillermo half-laughs, half-scoffs. He looks away, smiling and shaking his head.

“You know what?” he says. “Why not?” He tugs his shirt off and tosses it aside. “Fair warning, though, I’m going to win.” With that, he steps forward and leaps into the pool, tucking his knees to his chest in midair. He sends up a massive wave as he hits the water, surfacing only seconds later and swimming towards the shallow end with long, practiced strokes.

“Team up?” Valentina whispers to Juliana as Guillermo gets closer to them. “We can beat him together.” Juliana is grinning, she realizes suddenly. She has been this whole time.

“Team,” Juliana says back, holding out her hand. Valentina shakes it, and they share a scheming smile as Guillermo swims to a stop a few yards away from them. They turn as one, sending matching waves with their hands that him in the face.

* * *

Juliana gets home late, but Lupita is still up when she comes in the door. She’s at the table, on her computer, where she’s likely been all day, writing or drawing memories of Krypton.

“Where have you been?” Lupita asks as Juliana comes in. Her voice is neutral, but still, Juliana is immediately defensive.

“At Valentina’s,” Juliana says shortly.

“Oh?” Lupita says, still in that neutral tone. “How was it?” Juliana looks up at her suspiciously. Lupita sees the look and sighs. She closes her laptop, giving Juliana her full attention. “Look, Juli, I’ve been thinking about what you said the other day.”

“And?” Juliana says.

“And I never meant to make you feel like you couldn’t have anything,” Lupita says. “I want you to be happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”

“And you thought I was happy how things were?” Juliana says, shaking her head. “You thought I was happy not talking to anyone, not doing anything but fighting and getting hurt and hurting other people all the time? Staying locked up in this apartment and mourning forever? Were you paying any attention at _all_?”

“I don’t think I was,” Lupita says, her tone even and apologetic despite Juliana’s rising voice. “I don’t think I was paying attention. I’m sorry for that.”

“Whatever,” Juliana says, shaking her head. “Whatever. It’s—it’s fine.”

“No, it isn’t,” Lupita says. “I should’ve listened when you told me what you wanted. I’m sorry.” Juliana nods, too tired to stay mad at her mother. “But I’m listening now. So? Tell me about Valentina. What did you do today?” Juliana hesitates. Lupita gestures to the other chair at the table and smiles, just a bit. “I’m serious,” she says. “Tell me about your friend.” Slowly, Juliana steps forward, sliding into the chair.

“Well, she’s…she’s amazing,” Juliana says. “We went to her house today and had lunch with her brother and his wife. We went swimming, and then just walked through the gardens and talked for—” She glances out the window. It’s dark outside, the sun long since set. “—awhile.”

“Swimming?” Lupita says.

“She’s teaching me how,” Juliana says. “Or, she was going to. It turned into a water fight with her and Guillermo, but—“

“Guillermo?” Lupita says, her voice gaining a hint of a suspicious edge. “Her brother, Guillermo Carvajal? Do all the Carvajals know Supergirl personally, now?”

“Mama.” Lupita looks away, a muscle in her jaw working. Juliana pushes away her annoyance; Lupita is only trying to protect her. “He doesn’t know.”

“What?” Lupita looks back at her, confused. “What do you mean?” Juliana reaches into her jacket, pulling out the glasses Valentina had given her.

“Val gave me these,” she says, setting them on the table. “I thought it was ridiculous, but she was right. No one expects to see Supergirl, so they don’t. I put on normal clothes and glasses and I’m just—I’m just a normal person.” She props her chin on her hand, looking down at the glasses. “Guillermo and his wife just think I’m a friend of Valentina’s,” she says. “To them, I’m Juliana, not Supergirl.” She shrugs. “Obviously I wasn’t wearing them in the pool, but he didn’t recognize me then, either.” _Probably too much water in his face_. She and Valentina had made an _excellent_ —and highly efficient—team.

“Incredible,” Lupita murmurs. She picks up the glasses, turning them over in her hands, carefully avoiding the lenses with her fingers. “So you have a…a secret identity, now.”

“I guess so.” Juliana is about to say more when the TV catches her eye. It’s on in the living room, as it usually is, playing the news while muted. It’s playing some kind of onsite footage right now. The image is shaky and grainy, but Juliana can tell that something in it is on fire.

_Car crash kills four, injures two_ , the text at the bottom of the screen reads. Juliana gets up from the table, grabs the remote from the couch, and unmutes the TV.

“ _…police are saying the vehicle may have been tampered with_ ,” the newscaster is saying. The image switches back to the newsroom, where a somber-looking man in a suit is speaking. _“While it’s too early to reach any conclusions, preliminary reports are showing that the brake lines of the vehicle show signs of sabotage, and the computer system in the car may have been hacked, according to a police statement issued earlier today. Possible suspects are yet to be named, but many witnesses are claiming the accident was engineered by the anti-alien group known as Cadmus, which was formerly headed by Eva Carvajal. Police are—_ “ Lupita takes the remote from Juliana and turns off the TV.

“When did this happen?” Juliana says. Her voice sounds distant, faint over the growing buzzing in her ears.

“This afternoon,” Lupita says.

“Why didn’t I hear it?” Lupita shrugs helplessly.

“I don’t know,” she says. “But even if you had, there was nothing you could have done.” Juliana shakes her head.

“I should’ve—“

“Juliana.” Lupita’s voice is firm, stopping Juliana’s words in their tracks. “Those people who died? They died on impact. Immediately. By the time there were any sirens for you to hear, they were dead.” Lupita steps forward, wrapping an arm around Juliana’s shoulders tightly. Juliana goes with the motion, allowing herself to be pulled into her mother’s side, allowing herself to be comforted. “There was no one you could’ve saved,” Lupita says gently.

“I take one day off and this happens,” Juliana says. “Isn’t that a sign?”

“You’re not Rao, Juli,” Lupita says. “The world isn’t your responsibility. People do evil things. People die. You’ve already done more to stop that than most people will ever do. You can’t blame yourself.” Juliana remains in Lupita’s arms a moment longer. As strained as their relationship has been, Juliana has never stopped needing her mother, and she doesn’t think she ever will.

“I should—I should go talk to Valentina,” Juliana says after a minute. “He said they’re blaming Eva. Val will—she’ll need someone to talk to. I want to make sure she’s okay.”

“Okay,” Lupita says, giving Juliana’s shoulders one last squeeze before letting her go. “Just make sure you’re okay, too.” Juliana manages a small smile before she opens the window, lifting off and slipping out into the air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'd love to hear what y'all think is coming w this plotline. i mostly know where it's going, so any comments with guesses would be great. i'm on tumblr @daisys-quake and on twitter @thoughtsintoink, leave a comment and kudos if you enjoyed.


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